From sexualized posts to fake drug ads: A case study of online abuse targeting Tasnim Jara

Tasnim Jara is a physician, researcher, YouTuber and entrepreneur, and has recently entered into politics. Her YouTube channel, Dr Tasnim Jara, has long shared health and medical tips to raise public awareness. In the past, she did face some online bullying and misinformation, but it reached a new dimension after she joined the National Citizen Party (NCP) as its senior joint secretary in February 2025. With time, the false and misleading campaigns against her have only amplified and become more technology-driven.

Dismislab has analyzed 62 Facebook posts, circulated between March and August 2025, targeting Jara using edited images, misleading photocards of mainstream media outlets, and AI-generated videos and audios. In most cases, the language is abusive, derogatory and sexually suggestive in violations of Facebook’s policies. Some posts even used Jara’s photos and videos in fake advertisements of drugs to treat sexually transmitted diseases. 

During this investigation, these 62 posts were shared 29,693 times and viewed 7,432,900 times, receiving 478,634 reactions and 34,957 comments, mostly derogatory and sexualized.

The smear campaign against Jara reflects a wider trend of online abuse targeting women in Bangladeshi politics. Female politicians often face sexual harassment, innuendo and defamation online. For example, during Bangladesh’s 12th general election in 2024, actress-turned-politician Mahiya Mahi was subjected to an extensive online harassment, Dismislab had found at the time. Dismislab’s own research and other global studies show that such abuse discourages women from participating in politics and civic life.

Sexualized attack with edited photos

On August 5, the first anniversary of July Mass Uprising, five NCP leaders – its Chief Coordinator Nasiruddin Patwari, Chief Organizer (North) Sarjis Alam, Chief Organizer (South) Hasnat Abdullah, Senior Joint Member Secretary Tasnim Jara, and her husband Khaled Saifullah, who is also a Joint Convenor of the party – visited Cox’s Bazar. From the next day, trolling and bullying intensified, with one Facebook user posting an edited photo of Jara with the caption: “Your bhabi (sister-in-law) is now in Cox’s Bazar along with three men 🥱🙃.” Reverse image search showed the original photo, posted on 15 June, is that of another woman, whose face was edited and replaced with Jara’s.

The same user previously shared multiple edited images of her, including one showing Tasnim Jara embracing NCP leader Nahid Islam, with a caption comparing Jara’s youth with Goldleaf Cigarette, just one example of objectifying a woman. A reverse image search confirmed the picture was fake. The original photo showed NCP member secretary Akhter Hossain with Nahid Islam. The image, found on the Facebook profile of NCP leader Samanta Sharmin, had been manipulated by digitally altering Akhter’s face with Jara’s.

Of the 62 posts analyzed, 20 contained manipulated images (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), replacing Jara’s face onto other women’s bodies.

As many as 23 posts used Jara’s real photos, but with defamatory and sexually suggestive language. August alone saw 20 such posts, the highest in a single month. One Facebook group called “Dr Tasnim Jara Friends Club–DR Tasnim Jara” with nearly 11,000 members circulated a post with Jara’s edited image and a sexually suggestive caption: “Course on sexual intercourse”.

Investigation found the original photo was taken from a verified Instagram profile, edited and replaced with Jara’s.

In many cases, photos taken from her own profile were manipulated to place her alongside leaders of the NCP or Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami.

In June, an edited photo of Tasnim Jara went viral on social media. The image, shared across multiple posts (1, 2, 3), showed her and another woman wearing shorts, with derogatory captions and religious references. A fact check report debunked it as fake and AI-generated.

Two mainstream newspapers, the Daily Ittefaq and the Daily Kaler Kantho, even published two photocards on the fact-check report, but their suggestive hea dlines, “Dr Tasnim Jara’s photo in shorts goes viral” and “What we know about the photo of Tasnim Jara wearing shorts,” respectively, were misleading. None of the reports indicated in the heading that the photo was AI-generated or fake, leaving ambiguity that can trigger readers’ suspicion and curiosity.

Jara had criticized the circulation of edited photos in mainstream media at the time, calling them degrading to women and politically motivated.

Use media photocards, build fake narratives

Names, logos, and fake photocards of mainstream media outlets, including Samakal, Jugantor, Channel 24, and Jamuna TV, have been used at will to objectify Jara.

On August 6, one user shared a Channel 24 photocard using two images from NCP’s trip to Cox’s Bazar with a sexually suggestive caption referring to her private part. The caption was falsely attributed to Sarjis Alam, another NCP leader. 

In reality, Channel 24’s verified Facebook page, website, and YouTube channel published no such report. Two fake photocards (1, 2) using the logos and designs of Samakal and Jamuna TV falsely claimed that Jara had been sexually assaulted by her party colleagues in Cox’s Bazar.

“Three friends gang-raped Napa Party leader Tasnim Jara in a Cox’s Bazar hotel,” read one photocard on Facebook featuring the Samakal logo and an image of Tasnim Jara. Dismislab’s investigation found Samakal’s verified Facebook page, website, or e-paper and Jamuna TV’s verified Facebook page, website, and YouTube channel did not publish any such content. Jara herself made no such allegations either.

A similar photocard was created by a satirical page called ‘Baler Kontho’, which mimics the daily Kaler Kantho. Shared in a Facebook group called ‘Durgapur Helpline’, which has over 5,000 members, the card included images of Jara and four other senior NCP leaders. The caption claimed, “Tasnim Jara was gang-raped while touring Cox’s Bazar with central party leaders.” Researchers found no such reports on Kaler Kantho’s verified Facebook page, website, or e-paper.

In one case, the photocard of DBC News was found to be original, but the accompanying caption was fake. Posted in a Facebook group called ‘Supporters of Bangladesh Awami League’, having over 400,000 members, the fake caption reads: “NCP leaders are forcibly taking Tasnim Jara to a quiet corner in Cox’s Bazar to show her the sea. Details in the comments.” Fact is, DBC news published the photocard on its verified page on August 6 on Jara’s August 5 trip to Cox’s Bazar with colleagues and her husband, but the Facebook user edited out the original caption, deliberately targeting Tasnim Jara.

Edited videos spread sexualized content

Dismislab found at least four posts (1, 2, 3, 4) where her videos were edited before circulating with abusive and misleading narratives.

On July 8, one user shared an eight-second clip where a woman asks Jara how much she needs to be paid in exchange for intimacy. The video even appears to show Jara quoting a price. But the audio was fake.

Dismislab traced back the footage to Jara’s own YouTube channel. In the original video published four years ago, she was giving advice on anger management during pregnancy. The first four seconds of the video were cut out, the audio was replaced and then circulated in distorted form.

A similar pattern was seen elsewhere as well, in this case splicing together a video of Jara with a clip of a different man. In the edited version, the man is heard saying: “This apa used to tell others to do (indicating intercourse) it, now she’s doing it herself,” quickly adding,“Politics,” to make it look like an innocent comment. 

Dismislab found the original video on Jara’s YouTube channel, posted four years ago as an educational piece offering “guidelines for intercourse when trying to conceive”.

A user named Syed Sifat cut out a six-minute segment of that video, altered the caption, and republished it with the caption: “I, Dr. Tasnim Jara, did not come for power, I came to teach the rules of intercourse to the talented.”

AI videos and smear campaign

Deepfake video and audio have also been used to spread disinformation about her.

One such video, shared from a profile under the name Jeck Martin, showed a five-second clip where Jara appears to be wearing a swimsuit. The caption carried sexually suggestive remarks aimed at her. Close scrutiny of the clip shows it contains the watermark “Pixverse AI” in one corner. Pixverse AI is a tool commonly used to generate moving clips from still images. The original photo used to fabricate the video was traced back to Jara’s verified Facebook profile.

In another case, a Facebook user uploaded a short, six-second video that appeared to show Jara in a kissing scene with Dr. Shafiqur Rahman, the chief of Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami. At the two-second mark, Dismislab spotted an anomaly – Jara’s hand showed six fingers instead of five, a common flaw in AI-generated imagery. The original photo used in this deepfake was also found on her verified profile.

Fake audio has also been deployed to smear her. On August 3, a Facebook page circulated a 12-minute audio clip presenting it as a “secret phone conversation” between Jara and an alleged extramarital partner. The video, which paired Jara’s photo with another man’s, has already been viewed more than 493,000 times.

Investigations revealed that the audio has no mention of Jara or the supposed partner by name. A reverse image search showed that the man’s photo used in the clip was in fact of Sadat Rahman, the Bangladeshi youth who won the 2020 International Children’s Peace Prize.

Selling Jara’s name to sell sex drugs

Of the 62 posts investigated, 17 were advertisements promoting supposed remedies for men’s sexual health problems (1, 2, 3). These ads, shared from 17 different Facebook pages, used Dr. Tasnim Jara’s name, identity, photo, and even videos to claim false endorsements.

In some posts, it was alleged that Dr. Jara was promoting a “cure” for male sexual disorders (1, 2, 3) . Others claimed she had introduced a “great solution” for piles (1, 2) or for weight loss. While the advertisements were for dubious medicines, they featured Jara in the promotional content to gain credibility.

Collectively, till August 2025, these 17 misleading advertisement posts were shared 504 times, got 29,555 reactions, and were seen over 543,000 times.

These ads were found in Meta’s Ad Library in a keyword search using “Tasnim Jara” (including alternative spelling) in August. They were run by 14 different Facebook pages, six of which used Tasnim Jara’s name and identity to promote male sexual health products.

This is not the first time that scammers used Dr. Jara’s reputation in such fraudulent advertisements. Previously, her name and photos were exploited to promote fake products such as sexual health medicines, weight-loss pills, piles treatments, and even “height-increasing” drugs. At that time, Jara issued a clear public statement from her verified Facebook page ‘Dr. Tasnim Jara’, calling these activities “fraudulent.”

She warned that such products could cause not only financial harm but also serious health risks. Jara reminded her followers that all her official accounts carry the blue verification tick, and that any page or profile without verification using her photo or name for advertising should be treated as a scam.

The latest round of ads for sexual health remedies follows the same pattern of deception. None of the pages running these promotions are Meta-verified, confirming that they are not operated by Jara.

Who are targeting Jara?

Dismislab’s analysis found that more than two-thirds (40) of the posts were published from Facebook pages or profiles apparently affiliated with, or supportive of, the Awami League, formerly the ruling party. The Sheikh Hasina-led party was ousted last year in a mass uprising that was launched and spearheaded by some top leaders of NCP, where Jara holds a senior post. 

Among them, the user most frequently sharing her manipulated images was a man named Md. Saiful Islam. Between May 2 and August 7, 2025, he shared at least 20 images of Jara (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), 18 of which were manipulated. The remaining two were original, but they were used to spread gendered disinformation about her. In his Facebook bio, Saiful describes himself as a “soldier of Joy Bangla,” while his cover photo displays the image of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the late leader of the Awami League. Mujib is also the father of Sheikh Hasina, the now-deposed prime minister.

Other pages and profiles that circulated manipulated content about Jara include Awami League, 23, Bangabandhu Avenue, Bangladesh Awami Mujibabadi League, or self-proclaimed Mujib Soldiers (1 2). One is a satire page, three claimed themselves to be news media (1, 2) and 14 pages were circulating business ads. Political affiliation of the other two could not be discerned from their account’s details or names. 

The oldest of these accounts was created in July 19, 2009, while the newest in August 28, 2025.

Together, 133 admins managed 57 out of the 62 pages/profiles. The remaining accounts were only profiles, and their admin locations were hidden by the users. According to Facebook’s transparency data, the majority of them (102 admins) were based in Bangladesh, followed by 22 in Malaysia, 3 each in the UK and Saudi Arabia, and 1 each in Oman, the UAE, and Portugal. 

Why target women in politics? 

During Bangladesh’s 12th parliamentary election in 2024, actress Mahiya Mahi faced widespread online harassment, after she decided to run in the polls as an independent candidate from Rajshahi-1 constituency, having failed to secure Awami League nomination. At that time, Dismislab analyzed 60 election-related videos from Facebook, YouTube and TikTok that included the Bangla keywords like ‘Mahi’, and ‘vote’. The analysis found that, except for 15 videos, the remaining clips used sexualized messages in their titles, captions or content under the guise of soliciting votes for her.

Gender and media studies expert Professor Gitiara Nasreen told Dismislab at the time that Bangladeshi society is characterized by a classic patriarchy where misogyny is deep-rooted. According to Geetiara, though the topic here is elections, casting aspersions on a candidate’s sex life and ‘character’ has been used as a weapon to trivialize her. 

A 2021 study by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, titled ‘Assessment of Online Violence Against Politically and Civically Engaged Women in Bangladesh’, analyzed 553 English and 158 Bengali posts from Twitter (now X), Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. The research found that politically active women are often targeted with abusive and manipulative online content, which “exaggerates and distorts their public and private personas to dissuade them from participating in politics and engaging in social activism.” 

Maliha Tabassum, assistant professor at the Bangladesh University of Professionals, said online and social media attacks against women in politics are becoming a serious problem in Bangladesh.

Speaking about the disinformation and sexualized campaign against Tasnim Jara, she said, “This is not just a personal attack. It is a structural process that undermines a woman’s political agency and seeks to push her back into the private sphere.”

She warns that because of this structural process, many talented women may be reluctant to enter politics due to fear and shame. “This poses a severe threat to the country’s democratic representation,” she says, “because the perspectives and experiences of half the population are excluded from the political decision-making process.”

Violation of social platform policies

Many of the posts analyzed in this report violate Facebook’s hate speech policies and its bullying and harassment guidelines.

Gender-based stereotypes, hate speech, derogatory language, calls for exclusion or segregation, all of these fall under Facebook’s definition of hateful conduct. The platform’s rules state that such language is prohibited, whether explicit or implied. Posts, text, or images must not generalise in ways that demean or belittle individuals or groups based on gender. Similarly, using offensive terms related to sexual behaviour is not allowed.

Despite such strict policies, sexualized bullying and derogatory posts targeting Jara continue to be posted, shared and reshared.

Under its advertising policies, Meta lists “Unacceptable business practices,” stating that ads in Meta platforms cannot “use the image of a famous person and misleading tactics in order to bait people into engaging” with the product/service. In other words, it is forbidden to exploit a popular person to attract or manipulate audiences. Yet, in Meta’s Ad Library,  deceptive advertisements continue to use Tasnim Jara’s name and identity to promote various sexual health products.

In an interview with Dismislab, Jara said she had been subjected to trolls and false information in the past, but on a limited scale. “Since entering politics, however, the scale and nature of this harassment have completely changed. Now there is an organised campaign aimed at portraying me as unethical.”

She is concerned that anyone can be the next target, and pointed out that since the July Mass Uprising, many women who have joined politics or activism have faced cyber-bullying and character assassination like her.

“Male politicians also face smear campaigns, but these are generally focused on political or financial corruption. But almost all attacks on women are sexually suggestive, defamatory,” she said, explaining the gender dimension of such hate and disinformation campaigns.

She said she reported multiple such fake posts, ads, and edited photos and videos, but unfortunately received very limited support. “Platforms like Facebook and YouTube make huge money from Bangladesh, yet they often avoid responsibility.”

Updated methodology

Primarily, 27 abusive and attacking posts about Tasnim Jara that appeared on the Facebook feeds of four researchers from Dismislab were documented. Subsequently, keyword searches with “Jara,” “Dhorshon,” “Tasnim Jara,” “Cox’s Bazar,” and “NCP” were conducted on Facebook and the Meta Ad Library to identify whether additional negative, sexually harassing, or personal attack posts targeting Tasnim Jara had circulated. From the search conducted on August 20, 35 more posts were found, including harassing posts and all active advertisements on that day. In total, 62 contents were collected, of which 45 were Facebook posts and 17 were advertisements that personally attacked, abused, and exploited Tasnim Jara.