Over the past decade, gender backlash in Bangladesh has taken on an even more complex form within digital spaces. According to a 2024 report by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), approximately 8.3 per cent of women experience online violence, including threats, blackmail, misuse of images, and harassment on social media. Similarly, UN Women reports that more than 60 per cent of women, particularly young women, journalists, and politically active women, face some form of online hate speech or harassment. (UN Women Asia Pacific, Digital Violence Reports 2023–24)

This trend points to a culture of organised, network-based harassment in which coordinated trolling, the spread of misinformation, image manipulation, and the leaking of personal information are used to suppress women’s freedom of expression. In Bangladesh, several online campaigns targeting female journalists and human rights activists have emerged in recent years.

Following investigative reports or public commentary, false information about their personal lives has been circulated, their images manipulated, and coordinated trolling campaigns launched in attempts to defame and discredit them. This issue has also been highlighted in various press freedom reports. (Reporters Without Borders, World Press Freedom Index: Bangladesh Country Notes, 2022–2024)

Similarly, among female university students, incidents of organized trolling, threats, and the leaking of personal information following expressions of opinion on social or political issues have increased. Various studies identify this as a form of “doxing-like harassment.” (Digital Rights Bangladesh, 2023; Access Now South Asia Report, 2024)