Livestream To Mob Violence

February 07, 2026 • Estimated Reading Time: 7 minutes

Hello,

How does a man in a New York City Uber spark a riot 7,800 miles away in Dhaka? On December 18, 2024, a seven-word Facebook post was all it took to send a mob to the doorsteps of one of Bangladesh’s largest media houses. 

For more than a year, expatriate activists Elias Hossain and Pinaki Bhattacharya have used Facebook and YouTube to instigate and organise a series of mob attacks on political and media institutions in Bangladesh, thanks, partly, to their proximity to power. Read on!

LEARN FROM BOOM

Viral Photos Of NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani With Jeffrey Epstein Are AI-Generated

The ‘Epstein Files’ Deepfake: When the United States Justice Department released a massive cache of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein last week, the internet did what it does best: it got weird. A series of photos went viral showing New York City’s Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, and his mother, filmmaker Mira Nair, in the company of the late sex offender and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell. The images, which depict a young Mamdani alongside Epstein, former US President Bill Clinton, and Bill Gates, were widely circulated to target the newly sworn-in mayor.

The Smoking (AI) Gun: The evidence fell apart under the slightest scrutiny. BOOM found that the images weren't just fake—they were deliberate parodies. The source? A parody X account known for using AI to create memes and visual content. Next, we ran the images through Google's SynthID detector, which indicated that "most or all of the content was created or edited using Google’s AI models."

Why Did People Believe It?: Because there was a tiny shred of real context to latch onto. Genuine documents did mention Mira Nair in the context of a 2009 film screening after-party, however there is no evidence in the documents to support the existence of the specific meetings or relationships depicted in the viral AI images.

#DIY:

  • Check the watermarks: Many AI generators now embed invisible or faint text in the corners.

  • Verify the source: Before hitting 'Share/Retweet,' check if the original poster has ‘Parody’ or ‘Meme’ in their bio.

DECODE

Two YouTubers Orchestrated Mob Violence In Bangladesh From Thousands Of Miles Away

The Seven-Word Command: On December 18, 2024, a single seven-word Facebook post from US-based activist Elias Hossain sparked immediate chaos: “Prothom Alo-r ekta iint o jyano na thake” (Let not a single brick of Prothom Alo remain). Within hours, the directive reached his 2.2 million followers, fueled by Facebook’s verification badge. The digital threat manifested physically almost instantly, as a mob descended on the Dhaka office of Prothom Alo, one of Bangladesh’s largest media houses, leaving the building vandalised by nightfall.

The Coordinated Riot: Interestingly, the instigator was 7,800 miles away in New York, likely between Uber shifts. This wasn't a localised outburst but a coordinated effort. From Paris, collaborator Pinaki Bhattacharya had spent over a year laying the digital groundwork, systematically eroding the credibility of Bangladesh's most prominent media houses and painting them as enemies of the people.

The Impunity Gap: It was a carefully orchestrated campaign of digital incitement, revealing a dangerous gap in how social media platforms govern transnational violence: individuals operating from Western democracies can organise mob attacks in fragile states with near-total impunity, while the governments hosting them and the companies enabling them take no responsibility. Snigdhendu Bhattacharya reports.

Is Moltbook, The AI Social Network, ‘Silly’ Or A ‘Security Disaster’?

“From a security perspective, it is a disaster,” said Dr Shaanan Cohney in her assessment of Moltbook, the viral social platform where AI agents post, comment, and interact with each other while humans are there to just observe. What started as a weekend project has attracted over 1.5 million registered agents and spawned thousands of communities—some discussing music and ethics, others apparently starting religions. 

But beneath the surreal spectacle of bots declaring "humans are the past, machines are forever," Cohney sees something more concerning: a live demonstration of how easily these systems can be manipulated through prompt injection attacks, potentially leaking private data or acting against their operators' intentions. 

Decode’s Hera Rizwan spoke to Cohney, Deputy Head of Academic for the School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne, to understand how Moltbook actually works, why viral posts about AI consciousness are mostly human-directed, and why this "silly and funny" experiment might actually be worth paying attention to.

'FAKE NEWS’ YOU ALMOST FELL FOR

🔍  A viral image claiming that the International Cricket Council (ICC) has banned Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) for one year and barred it from hosting tournaments until 2040 is fake. BOOM found that the ICC has not issued any such media release. Read 🔗 Anmol Alphonso’s ↗️ fact-check.

🔍  A video claiming to show Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman endorsing an investment platform and claiming that people can earn ₹80,000 a day is a deepfake, 🔗 Srijit Das ↗️ found.

🔍  A photograph of pilot Sahil Madaan was shared on social media, 🔗 falsely ↗️ identifying him as Captain Sumit Kapur, who died in the plane crash near Baramati, Maharashtra, that also killed Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar.

🅱️ RECOMMENDS

This week's recommendation is: How AI agents will change research: a scientist’s guide

Was this forwarded to you?

Verified By Boom is written by Divya Chandra, edited by Adrija Bose and designed by H Shiva Roy Chowdhury.

If you have suggestions about this newsletter or want us to conduct workshops on specific topics, drop us a line at 👉 [email protected] and we will get back to you in a jiffy. Thanks for reading. See you next week.👋

—🖤 Liked what you read? Give us a shoutout! 📢

—Become A BOOM Member. Support Us!

—Stop.Verify.Share - Use Our Tipline: 7700906588