Teen, Obsession, and Broken Algorithm

December 27, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 8 minutes

Hello,

Meta says cosmetic ads are for adults only. The algorithm says otherwise. Decode created a test Instagram account of a fictitious 14-year-old boy and it was bombarded with skin-whitening content within minutes of its search.

Today, we dive into the gap between platform policy and actual user experience. Read on!

THE WEEKLY DOWNLOAD

Amid Bangladesh protests, BOOM’s fact-checking team is verifying deepfakes, old and unrelated videos, predominantly centered around the death of Dipu Chandra Das (a 27-year-old garment worker) and death of student leader Sharif Osman Hadi.

Swasti Chatterjee, News Editor East, Project Lead BOOM Myanmar and BOOM Bangladesh, tells me that the current situation in Bangladesh seems to be a play out of the July 2024 uprising of students that led to the ouster of former Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina.

“We are seeing a similar pattern where unrelated videos, street plays and staged protests are being linked to the death of Dipu Chandra das from Mymensingh and protests in Dhaka after Hadi’s death. Meanwhile, Hadi’s death that triggered anger nationwide saw trickling deepfakes of Al Jazeera news bulletin where an anchor can be seen blaming India for the death,” she adds.

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On the night of December 18, Dipu Chandra Das, a 27-year-old garment worker, was beaten to death and his body was set on fire in Bhaluka, Mymensingh by an angry mob on charges of blasphemy.

Next, a video showing Bangladesh policemen detaining a man while he pleads in front of them went viral with social media users identifying him as Dipu Chandra Das. 

However, BOOM found that the footage shows Abdul Momin, a Dhaka College student, being detained by police during a protest against the country’s ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in November this year. 

BOOM Bangladesh also spoke to AIG Dhaka Metropolitan Police Shahadat Hossain, who confirmed that the video is not related to Das. 

Apart from confirmation from official authorities, we also found a news report from November 2025 that identified the person detained by police as a Dhaka College student. 

CTRL + ALT + TEEN

Australia has enacted a nationwide ban on social media for teenagers. And while Australian teens have long debated this move, what if such a policy was implemented in India.

Titha Ghosh spoke to Aishani Rai of Aapti Institute who thinks that one of the biggest inadequacies of any blanket ban is that people will always find a way around, especially teens.

“I think currently what a ban does is that it focusses its measures either towards disabling access to an entire population or trying to put measures where bad content is not in circulation. And I think both of them are extremely extreme, and turn out to be ineffective. You'd rather make people more aware, and you make them more resilient towards dealing with some of these harms,” she adds.

DECODE

The Algorithm of Shame: How Instagram Feeds India's Skin-Whitening Obsession

The delusion of transformation: In a viral reel viewed 5.6 million times, a masked man laments his "dusky skin" to a self-proclaimed Ayurvedic doctor who prescribes Zandu Lalima syrup as a cure. The video uses dramatic, manipulated split-screen imagery to promise skin lightening.

Under the guise of "social service": Ilyas Iqbal, the creator, has approximately 249,000 followers. His profile offers "treatments" for everything from obesity to diabetes, alongside what he calls a "dark-skin cure." When Vipul Kumar called to ask about his medical credentials, he hung up—but not before insisting: "Zandu Lalima makes you fairer with repeated use, but not European white. This isn't a paid promotion; I'm doing social service." 

There is no doctor named Ilyas Iqbal registered with India's National Medical Council (NMC). 

Not the only one: He is one of at least 26 Instagram accounts Decode identified—collectively followed by over 14.2 million users—using "Dr" in their names to sell skin-whitening products or promote DIY remedies. Of these, 14 names don't appear in the NMC's registered doctors database. Six are possibly valid. Four couldn't be verified. Two are from Pakistan. They operate on platforms that explicitly prohibit what they're doing. 

Platform policy vs. reality: Meta's advertising policies ban ads that "promote skin whitening or bleaching products that cause permanent skin color change" and content that attempts to "generate negative self-perception" to promote cosmetic products. Yet when Decode searched "skin whitening" in Meta's Ad Library, 20,000 results appeared.

Cheap, Fast, Cinematic: AI Videos Turbocharge BJP's Online Hate Factory

In the hours after a car explosion in New Delhi killed 15 people on November 10, 2025, a video began circulating rapidly across WhatsApp groups in northern India. 

The clip appeared to show Muslim men dressed as doctors, working in a laboratory with volatile chemicals. A voiceover warned viewers of a deadly and invisible poison called ricin being allegedly prepared to contaminate vegetable markets and kill Hindus. The men wore skullcaps and lab coats. The visuals were sharp, clinical, and convincing. 

But none of it was real.

The video arrived at a moment when official information about the blast was limited, filling an information vacuum with panic-inducing audiovisuals. 

This was not an isolated incident. It was part of a growing pattern in India, where generative AI is being used to produce and disseminate communal propaganda at speed and scale, often by political actors linked to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Archis Chowdhury reports.

EXPLAINED

UIDAI To Ban Aadhaar Photocopies, But Does It Really Reduce Risk?

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is planning a new rule to stop hotels, event organisers and other businesses from collecting photocopies of Aadhaar cards. 

Under the new framework, businesses will first need to formally register with UIDAI as 'Offline Verification Seeking Entities.' Only then can they verify identity, and they'll have to do it through approved digital methods such as offline QR codes, API-based authentication, and other verification apps. Photocopies will be off the table entirely.

Everyone agrees that banning photocopies addresses an obvious vulnerability. But critics aren't entirely convinced the problem is solved, they think it's just been relocated. 

Tech policy researcher Medha Garg told BOOM’s Hera Rizwan that while document misuse is being addressed, new concerns emerge around "system design, implementation failures, and how verified Aadhaar data is stored and shared downstream."

'FAKE NEWS’ YOU ALMOST FELL FOR

🔍  A viral image claiming to show a Dhaka Tribune graphic quoting Bangladesh's interim leader Muhammad Yunus saying his mother was assaulted by Pakistani soldiers during the country's freedom struggle in 1971, is fabricated and fake, 🔗 Srijanee Chakraborty ↗️ found.

🔍  A video of a staged protest was shared online with a false communal claim that it shows Bangladeshi Islamists chopping off hair of students who do not wear traditional clothes or keep a beard. Read 🔗 Srijit Das’ ↗️ fact-check.

🅱️ RECOMMENDS

This week's recommendation is: The trust-consensus paradox: why decentralized fact-checking faces challenges on polarizing topics

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

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