Logo of Phnom Penh Post newspaper Phnom Penh Post - Middle East activists thwart online hoaxes

Middle East activists thwart online hoaxes

Content image - Phnom Penh Post
WhatsApp boasts 75 per cent penetration among internet users in the Middle East. AFP

Middle East activists thwart online hoaxes

Browse through Arabic-language social media pages and you could walk away thinking Covid-19 is a US hoax, isn’t deadly and can be swiftly cured with a garlic clove.

Arabic pages on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are brimming with fake news stories on the novel coronavirus, from benign inaccuracies to full-throated conspiracy theories.

As authorities work to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, activists across the Middle East are stepping up to combat the Arabic “infodemic” they say is as dangerous as the infection itself.

“We correct the news and save lives,” said Baher Jassem, an Iraqi activist from the Tech 4 Peace collective, which switched from its four-year campaign against fake political and economic news to setting the record straight on Covid-19.

Every few hours, the collective’s Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages publish screenshots of fabricated news stories about the virus, from claims about new remedies to celebrity deaths from the illness or a reassuring wave of recoveries.

The pictures are marked with a red stamp reading “fake post”, accompanied by a correction and links to more accurate information. Their accounts reach more than one million followers.

“We don’t just want to expose lies. We want to spread awareness about the coronavirus, the right way to protect yourself, the wrong remedies that are circulating,” Jassem told AFP.

The corrections campaign could not have come sooner: the region appears to be experiencing a long-feared Covid-19 spike.

Iraq’s daily case rate increase exploded to more than 2,000 in late June, nearing 3,000 per day this month.

Lebanon, Oman and Algeria saw peaks of daily new cases in mid-July, while Saudi Arabia and Jordan witnessed crests in late June but appear to be stabilising.

Doctors in Iraq blame online misinformation: their patients have insisted coronavirus is an American conspiracy, or people are actually dying from a sarin gas attack, or that Iraq’s blistering heat would halt the virus’s spread.

Medics say such false information could make people less likely to wear masks in public, abide by social distancing or wash their hands regularly.

‘This is personal’

Misinformation about Covid-19 has been spreading in various languages since the pandemic’s early days, but the proliferation in Arabic is particularly dangerous because of the lack of quality reporting, activists told AFP.

Indeed, Reporters Without Borders has noted authorities’ tightening control over media in the Middle East in 2020, specifically over information relating to Covid-19.

As a result, activists said, news consumers are suspicious of the information they find in traditional outlets and more likely to entertain conspiracy theories.

“Media literacy is non-existent. Iraqis can go on Facebook and Twitter but are not really equipped to see 50 different sources and differentiate what’s fact and what’s fiction,” said Faisal al-Mutar, a US-based Iraqi activist and founder of Ideas Beyond Borders.

IBB has partnered with Wikipedia to translate more than 250 detail-rich pages on Covid-19’s origins and spread into Arabic.

It’s no easy task given the Arabic language’s diverse dialects, said volunteer translator Issam Fawwaz, based in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.

“The scientific terms aren’t standardised. A term used in Syria, Lebanon or Jordan is totally different from Egypt or Morocco,” while some English terms have no Arabic equivalents, 33-year-old Fawwaz told AFP.

But conviction in the impact of his work has kept him going.

“This is personal for me. I was one of those people that used to believe fake news, but I was lucky to have people who pushed me to use my brain,” he said.

“One person persuaded by a fake news story can spark a calamity in his community.”

Fighting fire with fire

Fatabayyano, a Jordan-based platform founded in 2014 whose name translates to “Verify”, is fighting fire with fire.

“Fake news spreads faster than real news – and the amount of misinformation on WhatsApp is absolutely huge,” said Motaz al-Thaher, Fatabayyano’s media manager.

WhatsApp boasts 75 per cent penetration among internet users in the Middle East, according to a 2019 study by the Northwestern University in Qatar.

People use it to stay in touch with friends and family, but also to share links, photos and audio messages on current affairs, often unverified.

There are few regulations to fight misinformation on WhatsApp, Thaher said, as messages are encrypted and the platform can’t flag suspicious messages the way Facebook and Twitter can.

So Fatabayyano created its own channel, sending fact-based coronavirus reporting to thousands of WhatsApp users simultaneously.

The messages include links to long science-based Arabic articles on Fatabayyano’s website, bright virus-related graphics on its Instagram page and punchy one-minute videos to its nearly 800,000 Facebook followers.

“Rumours are viruses too!” reads the new caption under the campaign’s logo.

MOST VIEWED

  • Wing Bank opens new branch in front of Orkide The Royal along Street 2004

    Wing Bank celebrates first anniversary as commercial bank with launch of brand-new branch. One year since officially launching with a commercial banking licence, Wing Bank on March 14 launched a new branch in front of Orkide The Royal along Street 2004. The launch was presided over by

  • Girl from Stung Meanchey dump now college grad living in Australia

    After finishing her foundational studies at Trinity College and earning a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Melbourne in 2022, Ron Sophy, a girl who once lived at the Stung Meanchey garbage dump and scavenged for things to sell, is now working at a private

  • Ministry using ChatGPT AI to ‘ease workload’; Khmer version planned

    The Digital Government Committee is planning to make a Khmer language version of popular artificial intelligence (AI) technology ChatGPT available to the public in the near future, following extensive testing. On March 9, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications revealed that it has been using the

  • Wat Phnom hornbills attract tourists, locals

    Thanks to the arrival of a friendly flock of great hornbills, Hour Rithy, a former aviculturist – or raiser of birds – in Kratie province turned Phnom Penh tuk tuk driver, has seen a partial return to his former profession. He has become something of a guide

  • PM urges end to ‘baseless’ international Ream base accusations

    Prime Minister Hun Sen urges an end to “baseless” foreign accusations surrounding the development of the Kingdom’s Ream Naval Base, as the US has consistently suggested that the base is being expanded to accommodate a Chinese military presence. Hun Sen renewed his calls while

  • Almost 9K tourists see equinox sunrise at Angkor Wat

    Nearly 9,000 visitors – including 2,226 international tourists – gathered at Angkor Wat on March 21 to view the spring equinox sunrise, according to a senior official of the Siem Reap provinical tourism department. Ngov Seng Kak, director of the department, said a total of 8,726 people visited Angkor Wat to