Via the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: Coronavirus disinformation adds conspiratorial fuel to a volatile Middle East. Excerpt:
If some sources in the Middle East and North Africa are to be believed, China has declared nuclear war on the United States as retaliation for the latter creating the coronavirus to destroy the Chinese economy. Other equally dubious sources could lead a person to believe that 5G technology is responsible for the virus, or that COVID-19 spreads the most in countries located on the 40th parallel north.
When the first cases of COVID-19 were recorded in the region in late January, many Middle Eastern and North African governments responded quickly and decisively to the pandemic by instituting lockdowns and other measures to prevent the spread of the virus. Yet, as part of a Princeton University project to track COVID-19 disinformation narratives, we can say these physical containment measures have done little to contain the spread of misinformation.
Misinformation has been a part of political life in the Middle East and North Africa for years; the coronavirus era has proved no exception. In the past eight months, we recorded 403 independent COVID-19 misinformation narratives in the region. These narratives, which represent general storylines which then get repeated in tweets, posts, or online articles, make up a little over 16 percent of the 2,471 storylines our project has collected from countries around the world so far.
The sources of misinformation—ranging from social media users to heads of state—painted either a bleaker picture than is actually warranted by the facts or gave false hope that the containment and eradication of the virus was at hand.
On the bleak side of the spectrum: In Algeria and the Palestinian territories, fake news on social media suggested that some cities or jurisdictions had extended a lockdown. In Egypt, false rumors claimed that newspaper presses were stopped and schools were turned into field hospitals. Again in Algeria, social media users falsely claimed that the state had instituted a moratorium on marriages. In the UAE, social media users falsely claimed that malls and dressing rooms were shuttered due to the spread of the coronavirus.
Over the summer, celebrities in the region were allegedly testing positive for or dying from the coronavirus with alarming frequency. But Egyptian singers Hany Shaker and Tamer Hosny, Iraqi actress Inaam Al-Rubaii, and Algerian singer Cheb Khaled have all denied rumors about their health, countering misinformation about them.
Regular people weren’t spared, either. In Bahrain, one false story alleged that more than 70 delivery drivers had tested positive for the virus. In Egypt rumors spread on social media that students were getting infected during school exams. Some stories even falsely claimed that students sitting for thanawaya a’mma exams, or the national college entrance exams, were passing out or dying in testing rooms.
