Manila already carried the weight of history before the delegates arrived. On June 10, 2026, the University of the Philippines became the meeting ground for something urgent — a conversation about how democracies across Asia are losing a war most citizens cannot see. DRAPAC 2026, themed “Building the Commons: Scaling Collective Resources for Our Digital Futures,” brought together researchers, journalists, and security professionals from across the region. Bangladesh had a voice in that room.
As Research Coordinator at the Centre for Critical and Qualitative Studies (CQS), I joined the panel “Bridging Gaps, Building Understanding: Countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference in Asia” to represent not just my institution, but the particular vulnerabilities of a country navigating democratic fragility in a high-pressure information environment.
FIMI is not just fake news
Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference — FIMI — is not simply about false stories spreading online. The European Union External Action Service describes it as a security issue involving a structured supply chain. That distinction changes everything about how we respond.
In Bangladesh, the 2026 national election exposed this distinction sharply. Coordinated networks pushed narratives that were not always factually wrong — they were strategically misleading. The goal was not correction but confusion. Voter uncertainty, ethnic tension, and institutional distrust became the intended harvest. This is cognitive security under attack.
What Bangladesh brought to the table
My presentation drew from research at CQS on how FIMI operates at the intersection of migration, gender, and civic participation. Disinformation in Bangladesh does not target all communities equally. Women voters, minority communities, and migrant-connected populations face layered manipulation — content designed to suppress participation rather than simply spread falsehoods.
During the 2026 election cycle, we tracked coordinated inauthentic behaviour that amplified inflammatory content during key voting windows. The timing was not accidental. State-linked actors — operating from outside Bangladesh’s borders — clearly understood the country’s social fault lines better than most domestic observers wanted to admit.
A regional problem needs a regional response
What made this panel distinct was its refusal to treat each country’s FIMI problem as isolated. Researchers from Indonesia, Taiwan, India, and the Philippines brought their own case studies. Patterns emerged quickly. The tactics — platform manipulation, fabricated personas, emotionally charged micro-targeting — transcended national borders. The threat actors frequently did too.
Doublethink Lab’s digital investigations, Tempo’s fact-checking architecture, and ThinkFi’s AI-driven OSINT research all pointed toward the same conclusion: national responses alone are structurally insufficient. Cross-regional intelligence sharing is no longer optional.
Special thanks to Janina Gillian Santos, Jerry Y., Ika Ningtyas, Rohit Sharma, Dana Batnag and Rommel Jude Ong, who delivered comprehensive reports and insightful presentations, breaking down complex FIMI threats and showing us exactly why cross-regional intelligence sharing is our best defence.
Rights cannot be the casualty.
Perhaps the most important thread running through our discussion was this — countering FIMI cannot become a justification for restricting expression. Bangladesh is currently navigating proposed disinformation legislation that carries real risks to press freedom. Any intervention must protect the rights it claims to defend.
The DRAPAC conversation reinforced something researchers and civil society across Asia increasingly agree on: a whole-of-society approach, rooted in fundamental freedoms, is the only sustainable path forward.
Leaving Manila with more than notes
Walking out of Room 404 that afternoon, the urgency felt sharper and the path forward slightly clearer. Bangladesh is not peripheral to this conversation — it sits at a critical intersection of Asian information dynamics.
Bringing that perspective into a regional framework is not just academically valuable. Given what is already happening, it is necessary.
