How does Fake News affect the Moroccan audience’s loyalty?
By Yousra Felahi and Ikrame Kohl
What is the source of these news? From where did you get it? Awareness is rising during the pandemic of COVID-19 and people are realizing fake news do exist. But will this be enough to stop them from spreading?
Morocco is one of the countries where fake news reckoned a wider spread at this difficult time of the pandemic based on the report of the national council of the Moroccan press.
Fake news are being shared on social media and by some Moroccan digital media platforms, where these false informations have increased especially during the appearance of the virus,that took place between March and June 2020. Using titles that the report found it as a dilemma, because their aim after all is to attract more viewers and get more reactions. Nevertheless, what make fake news spread more than accurate informations? how does publishing fake news affect the audiences’ loyalty towards the media?
The role of Moroccan authorities towards fake news
The Moroccan public authorities are opening investigations to punish people who are publishing fake news.
The case for example to a Moroccan old woman who is an influencer on YouTube, called Mi Naima Elbadaouia who published on her channel a video about corona virus saying that it doesn’t exist and urges the non-implementation of prevention recommendations and precautionary decisions ordered by the public authority to avoid the spread of infection, even more the false statements that were the subject of electronic complaints submitted by a number of Moroccan citizens.
The judicial investigation ordered by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Court of First Instance in Casablanca in the aim to determine the circumstances of her case and to reveal the reasons and backgrounds for publishing these digital contents that affect the health security of citizens and the public order.
In the end, they arrested her for a few months instead of one year and they removed her YouTube Channel. But even that Mi Naima didn’t give up, once she released from prison, she created a new YouTube Channel with the same name.
Especially that with the appearance of the pandemic, it has created a situation of fear and frustration to Moroccans where those influencers and digital media platforms took advantage of it in order to gain more clicks, views and reactions without taking into consideration the effects on the audience’s loyalty and trust.
Two concret examples of the spread of fake news by some Moroccan digital media platforms
Named Hibapress and kawalissrif, they both published fake news recently. Starting with Hibapress’s information in a form of a video, which is about a famous Moroccan lawyer, assuming that the number of coronavirus cases in Morocco is wrong and it is less than what it’s shown .
Moreover, as we can see through the video, starting from the title, the media used the word “dangerous” , which we can consider as one of the ways that digital media use to attract the audience’s attention, by triggering them with attractive words like “Dangerous”, “Scandal” and “Disaster”, just how it was mentioned on an article from the policy center for the new south
It worked this time for Hibapress, the fake news has been published in a form of a YouTube link and it gained a high number of views like never before :
In this data, we can notice that Hibapress’s video got 11 times more views than the posts that were published in the previous two week :
Here also , we can notice the huge difference in the number of reactions in the fake news post in term of likes and comments in comparison to its previous posts :
Whereas, the number of subscribers gained one month before and after the fake news post are alike with an average of 7500 subscribers gained.
A Kawalissrif‘s fake news post, wrongly states that the King of the Moroccan Kingdom has given his consent about reinstating quarantine.
This post knew a big interaction by the Moroccan audience, they even believed in it without rechecking from other official Moroccan medias.
The Kawalissrif fake news post got almost 4 times as many reactions on Facebook than the average for the previous two weeks, got 10 times more comments and 16 times more shares than the previous posts which is a huge change in term of the audience’s interaction :
Fake news have a great impact on empowering specific platforms. When the mistakes of the press platform are repeated continually in spreading fake news, the balance of trust is greatly reduced, especially if this specific media does not apologize to its audience and followers.
Jalal Almakhfi, head of a communication agency, consultant and communication coach
However, as a response to this fake news, the chief of government denied it with an official communique where he clarified that it’s a fake news due to the big interaction of the Moroccan audience.
“All of these methods depend on their success on the extent of the ignorance of the Moroccan audience and their inability to distinguish and differentiate between fake and accurate news”, says expert of communication Jamal Almakhfi. “In addition to that, the absence of subjective and acquired mechanisms for logical judgment and the caution in dealing with fake news”, he adds.
To sum up, Jamal Almakhfi recommended some tips in order to avoid spreading fake news and rumors:
- The first level: In some countries such as Morocco, legal, executive and judicial mechanisms are relied upon to counter fake news :
Moroccan legislation — especially the criminal law — provides for prison penalties and heavy fines in this regard, and the Moroccan police investigate and search for every rumor and arrest those who spread it. Especially when there is a crisis like the Corona pandemic. After the arrest and investigation, the persons or parties involved in these crimes, as described by Moroccan law, are brought to trial for the judiciary to carry out its work. We witnessed this throughout and after the quarantine period, and the authorities are still pursuing misguided people. Whoever drafted the law in this regard thought about the negative impact and misleading on society and wanted to put red lines on some topics.
- The second level: improving education in the world of media and information :
This educational field has been theorized by specialists who have worked with the UNESCO, which includes media and communication within the field of its mandate, in order to remedy the deficiency of the Moroccan audience regarding the distinction between fake and accurate news, while strengthening the ability to analyze by improving the critical sense.
This international organization recommends many countries — including Morocco — to integrate education on the media and information (MIL) into the school curricula from an early age, to teach children and teenagers how to deal with information and news, showing the importance of journalism in building democracy and strengthening universal values.
Morocco was supposed to integrate this education within its academic curricula within the framework of the National Strategy for the Reform of the Education System (2015-2030), but until now, and in the field and on practical level, we do not see that, even in the institutes of journalism and communication, we do not find such educational programs or attend them.
- The third level: the role of civil society organizations and the public policies :
They have to support media’s education, through monitoring, tracking and issuing recommendations and reports on the first hand, and through internships for journalists and civil society organizations in order to contribute to countering the spread of fake news
- The fourth level: related to the efforts of the media themselves:
Much of the Western media set aside programs to counter fake news. Whether through informative educational videos in the field, or by allocating a place to professionally analyze fake news on their bulletins, newspapers and websites in order to teach the Moroccan audience how to distinguish and identify fake news and accurate ones.
Moreover, the institutions such as the Supreme Council of the Press, the Supreme Commission for Audiovisual Communication, and professional organizations must organize and coordinate among themselves so that these efforts have a realistic affect in order to reduce and counter fake news simply by requiring a participatory approach that involves all concerned parties to come up with effective and operational recommendations whose impact and effectiveness can be measured.