Political parties spend Tk 4cr on Facebook adverts: Study
DU Correspondent :
Political parties, organisations and public representatives in Bangladesh have spent US $369,786 (around Tk 4 crore) on political advertisements on Facebook to spread a total of 62,455 political ads, according to a study of Digitally Right Limited (DRL).
Digitally Right conducted the research on the review of the implementation of political advertisement policy in Facebook in Bangladesh over the data covering the period from September 7, 2022, to September 7, 2023. The DRL released the research on Monday.
Political parties like Awami League and BNP and their leaders are launching campaigns through advertisements, the study says adding political campaigns are being launched through various lesser known pages.
In many cases, it is seen as per the Facebook policy, the advertisers are not providing necessary information for transparency.
Analysing 314 disclaimers of advertisement the study says in the case of 79.6 per cent, there is no adequate information regarding advertisers or addresses of the organisations, where only 16.9 per cent has full address.
According to the study, BNP largely disseminated its messages via the BNP Media Cell and the official party page.
In contrast, AL used several politicians and supporter pages in addition to their official party pages, as seen by the top ten political pages list.
In terms of individual politicians, Zunaid Ahmed Palak, a State Minister and Member of Parliament (MP) from the ruling party, had the top position in terms of expenditure.
The analysis shows that BNP’s two pages are ahead in terms of political advertising expenditure, but collectively the government and Awami League campaign more. Political campaigns are carried out from various pages, which favour the government and Awami League.
According to the research data, political organization page BNP Media Cell spent US $9751 where Bangladesh Awami League spent US $2856 and Nouka Manei spent US $3151, Political party Bangladesh Nationalist Party-BNP spent $6233, Politician Zunaid Ahmed Palak spent $7544, Politician Abul Khair Abdullah spent $3658, Mohammad Abdus Salam spent $2866, Mahmud Hassan Ripon spent $1953, Gujab Noy Shotto Janun spent $1882 and Political Candidate Lion Alhajj Mohammad Imran spent $2110.
Besides, news and media website Press Xpress spent $11739 where BD Peoples Voice spent $7377, Amar Netri Amar Ahongkar spent $7627, Banglar Samachar spent $5129, Peoples Voice spent $4378 and Positive Bangladesh spent $4311 in this concern, according to the study.