The Moroccan media audience loyalty remains steadfast in front of the Covid-19 fake news floods

By Khadija Boufous

Fake news stories related to Covid 19 in Morocco are often more successful than real news items, an analysis finds. These fake news use specific mechanisms to convince the audience and keep spreading, without negatively affecting the audience loyalty.

“The Moroccan King gives his approval to impose a comprehensive quarantine in Morocco” is among the strongest Fake News spreading recently in Morocco. It was shared by news website Kawalissrif and posted by their Facebook page. This fake breaking news created fear of a second quarantine decision, after the first one was hard on Moroccan citizens on all sides: economically, socially and psychologically.

Arrests and digital censorship to limit the spread of fake news

After Morocco recorded the first case of COVID-19, on March 3, 2020, Fake News about the virus started spreading like wildfire. According to a report by the European Journalism Observatory on the topic of Covid-19 and the press in Morocco, the mainstream media failed in fact checking these fake stories. Subsequently, many moroccan social media users have been consuming these Fake News. This has affected their psychological and intellectual state and caused them panic.

The Fake News spreading in this early period were especially videos containing false information about coronavirus cases in different regions of Morocco, but also some “fabricated” and false data on the name of some official institutions, such as fake reports of the Ministry of the Interior regarding a second quarantine.

The Moroccan Ministry of the Interior has started prosecuting promoters of Fake News related to the virus in Morocco, especially on Facebook and Twitter. Many have been arrested across different regions. 

Makers of fake content are not able to carry out forgery and fraud in a way that seems credible and difficult to recognize as fake.

Brahim Chaabi

In the same period, according to a report by The Collaboration on International ICT Policy in East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) about the state of internet freedom in Africa, observers and researchers rejected an enactment of a new emergency law criminalizing Fake News, prosecuting their promoter and imposing an online censorship on websites and blogs. The report considered this enactment as a restriction of freedom of expression.

A huge success for Fake News stories

These measures have reduced, if not eliminated, Fake News related to the virus in Morocco. False reports are quickly deleted and old posts removed for fear of prosecution. But a case study reveals that false information can still spread on social media, often outperforming real news stories.

On June 19, media outlet Hibapress posted a video on Youtube of Moahmed Ziane, a well known Moroccan lawyer and politician, declaring that Corona is only a way to control Moroccans and claiming that there are only 15 people affected by the virus in Morocco. The outlet didn’t debunk this claim, but posted the clip without further comment. The video got almost 11 times more views and likes than the average for posts that were published in the previous two weeks. It also got 13 times more comments than the average in the two weeks before. 

Brahim Chaabi, a journalist and  professor at ISIC (L’Institut Supérieur de l’Information et de la Communication) and president of the National Center of Media and Human Rights (CNMDH), says that for many users, it’s hard to tell the difference between truth and rumour. 

Morocco still has a high share of illiteracy. Despite The Kingdom’s Constitution of 2011, which provides for the possibility of access to information for all citizens, many people are still not well-informed, according to Chaabi.

He added that technological developments contribute to creating confusion for citizens: “With the help of modern information technologies, makers of fake content are not able to carry out forgery and fraud in a way that seems credible and difficult to recognize as fake.”

Fake Fame: exploiting the Covid-19 crisis

In the context of achieving fame and making these Fake News successful, Oualid Tbatou, a young media researcher said that in every crisis, the question of professional ethics re-imposes itself. “Some mainstream media may fall prey to exaggeration in describing events or dealing selectively in highlighting specific issues and turning a blind eye to others, or exploiting the crisis to pass official ideas and perpetuate authoritarianism,” he said, Mr Tbatou also professed that others may spread fake news while looking for a scoop.

This is why, in the COVID-19 crisis, it might have been particularly tempting for media outlets to post scandalous news items without thorough fact-checking. Hibapress, for example, got a lot more attention during the first wave of Covid lockdowns.

The post by Kawalissrif about a second quarantine had a similarly big impact: It got 194 reactions on Facebook, which is almost 4 times as many reactions as the average for the previous two weeks. In addition, it got 9 times more comments than average.This came even after an official report by the Moroccan prime minister denying this whole story. 

The Kawalissrif post also got 15 times more shares than other posts published in the previous 2 weeks. This is a huge change, since sharing allows the story to gain new reactions, and affect more people.

Even with Fake News, the audience stays loyal to their favourite media platforms

These Fake News can influence audience loyalty, Brahim Chaabi said. However: “ruly loyal people do not give up their favorite media platform even if it is breached, defaced or fabricated.” The expert added that the National Press Council recently revealed many violations and fraud against many private (Hespress) and public institutions (Medi1TV), for example. Despite this, viewers of the channel and readers of Hespress continued to follow and watch their content.

But do fake news stories generally get more reactions than truthful articles? Yassine Bouchouar, a researcher at the Research Center for Studies in Social Sciences (CCERSS), says: “It would be natural to say that fake news will affect the audience’s loyalty. But is it a general result or anomalous? We do not know. There are a lot of unprofessional national media outlets which have no credibility, but they always get the highest rates of followers and views. It is true that there is a very big difference between following and loyalty”. 

According to him, this is the same logic that “Click Journalism” works on: seducing the recipient to get them to interact and share the content, or even just to  participate silently or simply follow the media outlet platforms.

Verification remains the best solution

As a human rights activist, Brahim Chaabi, the president of the National Center of Media and Human Rights, always goes through a long process to verify news stories. The Center itself also sues promoters of fake news. “We consider receiving accurate true information and data, with no ambiguity, a right for every Moroccan citizen,” he says.

“Training, sensitization and raising awareness must be strengthened in order to deal with Fake News”, says Chaabi. It is also necessary, according to him, to deter all those who publish or manufacture fake and false content with prohibitive legal provisions.

In the end, the expert emphasized the media institutions’ role which is essential in fighting fake news and misleading information. He recommends that media institutions establish an editorial charter that includes the obligations of the corporation’s employees to fact-check every story and adhere to the ethics of the profession of journalism.