’Legal action to be taken against fake online news portals’

Sounding a note of warning against fake news portals, Information Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud on Thursday said legal action would be taken against all fake online news portals in the country.

“There were only a few online news portals in 2009. Now, there are so many online portals. However, not all of them are helpful in many cases. For this, we started online registration activities and we’ve a plan to complete the registration process within the year as far as possible,” he said.

The information minister said action would be taken from next year against those online news portals that are involved in serving personal interests instead of publishing objective news, in spreading rumours and in creating instability in the society.

He was addressing the inaugural function of the Reporters Journal — an online journal of Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) — and the DRU Writer Award 2020 at DRU auditorium in the capital.

Al Arafah Islami Bank Deputy Managing Director Md Shafiqur Rahman and DRU General Secretary Riaz Chowdhury addressed the function as special guests with DRU President Rafiqul Islam Azad in the chair.

Hasan said actions would be taken after registration activities of online news portals. It is the need of society and journalists as well, he added.

He said actions would be taken against those portals which are working on other issues instead of publishing news.

“This is not the scenario of Bangladesh, but the picture of whole world. In the developed countries, it has been possible to establish discipline in this sector which has not been possible here fully. Sometimes, wrong news is published,” he added.

The information minister said there are many unintentional mistakes, especially in online media, he said, adding that it would be possible to reduce the mistakes in news.

In this regard, DRU took initiative of giving training to journalists along with PIB, which is really appreciable, said Hasan, also the Awami League joint general secretary.

The information minister said the all journalists’ organisations including DRU could take a pivotal role to stop such incidents.

The information minister thanked DRU for inaugurating the online journal and said it is easy to reach information to common people through the internet.

The information minister handed over crests and honorarium to all writers who won the awards this year.

Later, Hasan inaugurated a shed for motorbikes for DRU members.