Fight against disinformation and fact-checking in Bangladesh’s July 2024 uprising: the digital battlefields

Abstract The Bangladesh Uprising of July 2024 was a critical period in the country’s political trajectory, synonymous with mass mobilization, regime overthrow, and an unprecedented information blackout. This research explores the pivotal contribution of digital disinformation to the course and perceptions of the revolution. To that end, in addition to a quantitative content and sentiment analysis, we combine this with qualitative interviews, looking specifically at how misinformation was shared, amplified, and debunked across digital platforms. This study draws on 112 verified fact-checking reports, 87 news articles, and 15 semi-structured interviews with journalists, fact-checkers, and digital rights activists to examine how politically charged disinformation shaped the July 2024 protests in Bangladesh. Findings reveal a surge in coordinated campaigns amplified through social media echo chambers, influencing protest narratives and public trust. Although local fact-checking grew rapidly, structural challenges of limited resources limited their effects, which worsened with algorithm amplifications, low media literacy, and partisan mistrust. The article locates these dynamics of disinformation in the context of more general problems of media regulation, political polarization, and digital infrastructures in transitional democracies. It calls for a multi-pronged solution, including institutional reform, algorithmic accountability, and continued digital literacy investments. Through the lens of Bangladesh’s July 2024 crisis, the study adds to the global conversation on disinformation in crony-authoritarianism and underscores the critical nature of context-sensitive verification systems in the Global South.