World Press Freedom Day: VOICE hosts webinar on AI, future of journalism
On the occasion of World Press Freedom Day 2025, speakers at a webinar have urged the government to publish an update on the National Artificial Intelligence Policy 2024 and finalize it through a consultative process.
They made the call at a webinar titled "Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Journalism in Bangladesh," organized by Voices for Interactive Choice and Empowerment (VOICE), a rights-based research and advocacy organization.
The virtual event brought together journalists, civil society members, human rights defenders, legal experts, technologists, and researchers. The panel featured Rezwan Islam from Engage Media, Sharmin Khan, Legal Consultant at the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL), Md Saimum Reza Talukder, Senior Lecturer at BRAC University's School of Law, Miraj Ahmed Chowdhury, Founder and Executive Director of Digitally Right, Minhaj Aman, Research Coordinator at Digitally Right, and Tajul Islam, journalist at The Business Standard.
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"AI tools are increasingly being used in Bangladeshi newsrooms to automate certain tasks and expedite content delivery but the technological divide in media access must be addressed and awareness about the responsibility of sharing news must be created to prevent the spread of fake news," said Tajul Islam.
Highlighting an absence of AI policy in newsrooms, Rezwan Islam said: "AI is beneficial to research and helps save time but it cannot
write an article as it does not have the experience and judgement of the journalist. Now the biggest challenge is that mass people are not being able to trust media anymore, so AI should be leveraged to combat biased information, cross-check data."
Md Saimum raised concerns about how keyword filtering is influenced by political decisions and how platforms are shadow-banning content, limiting its reach to audiences. He called for AI regulation to be grounded in human safety, emphasizing that local norms and values must be incorporated into AI policies. He also underscored the need for Bangladesh to be added to the global AI readiness index.
Miraj Ahmed Chowdhury discussed the challenge of copyright in the context of AI, noting that the issue will be tool-specific for derivative content. Sharabon Tohura, Consultant at Nijera Kori, highlighted how misinformation on platforms like YouTube is consumed by elderly people and can reach epidemic levels, stressing the need for digital literacy campaigns.
"Journalists, human rights activists, and civil society actors must be consulted for formulation of a people-friendly AI policy," said Ahmed Swapan Mahmud, Executive Director, VOICE.
Speakers said literacy around the use of AI must be ensured as there is a growing threat posed by the spread of deepfakes, misinformation, algorithmic bias, enhanced surveillance, and the risk of job displacement for human journalists.
