A gang-rape video, a viral phrase, and the internet we live with

In November 2025, a video of a gang-rape in Bangladesh started spreading online. The clip, less than a minute long, appeared to show a sexual assault taking place in an open area. At one point, a perpetrator can be heard uttering a short phrase, spoken casually amid laughter. As the video went viral, those words began appearing across social media platforms, often without reference to the incident itself.

On the internet, as it spread, parts of the video were repeatedly reused. Its audio and visuals appeared in edited clips and short videos on Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, and X. Some posts promoted the incident itself or criticised the response of authorities. Others used the same material for entertainment. The phrase gradually turned into a hashtag to attract followers, reach and engagement, an investigation by Dismislab has found.

By late November, so many people were searching for the phrase on Google that it began trending in search results. Google Trends data show a sharp rise in searches followed by sustained interest over several weeks. The search terms show that many users were looking for the video itself, not details about the case.

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Between November 10 and 27, Dismislab documented nearly 600 videos and over 1,400 comments, and examined how the footage of a sexual violence travelled online, how users engaged with it, and how platform safeguards repeatedly failed to slow or contain its spread.

According to the analysis, on Facebook, roughly 65 percent of the commenters actively promoted or sought links to the video, while many resorted to mockery and victim-blaming. On other platforms, roughly two-thirds of the documented videos reused the original footage or audio without meaningful blurring or safeguards.

Experts caution that turning a survivor's trauma into something that is searched for and circulated carries consequences. Repeated exposure to sexual violence, particularly when reframed as humour or spectacle, can normalise harm and intensify secondary victimisation. For survivors, each replay can function as a continuation of the original assault. For platforms, the episode exposes how easily policies designed to protect users can be bypassed when circulation outpaces accountability.

Explaining the difficulty of removing the video, Lieutenant Colonel Muhammad Rasheduzzaman, director (Systems and Services) at BTRC, said that when the same video or audio is repeatedly downloaded, edited, and reuploaded, each version generates a new link and a different digital signature. "As a result," he added, "multiple versions of the same content spread across platforms as separate links. This often makes it difficult for automated detection systems used by social media companies to identify and block the content consistently."

Quazi Mahfujul Hoque Supan, an associate professor at the Department of Law at Dhaka University, said that re-sharing or disseminating such videos constitutes a criminal offence both under the Pornography Control Act, 2012, and the Cyber Security Ordinance, 2025.

Why, then, does such content continue to circulate so widely? Professor Kamal Chowdhury, who teaches at the Department of Clinical Psychology at Dhaka University, said that some individuals consume this material out of curiosity, while others may derive pleasure from witnessing such scenes, which he described as a form of psychological deviation. Individuals who grow up under strict discipline or experience physical abuse in childhood, he said, may gradually begin to perceive violence as normal. Over time, this can evolve into a sense of gratification in observing another person's suffering -- an impulse that often intensifies when women are involved.