Monitor lists top 10 fake news reports circulated locally on social media in 2016

AMMAN — “Akeed”, an online portal dedicated to monitoring the credibility of Jordanian media, on Saturday published a report on the top 10 false news on social media, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The monitoring group, a Jordan Media Institute project, listed the 10 “most famous lies” circulated locally on social media in 2016.

The first was a statement about closing streets in Amman and Zarqa during New Year’s Eve. A statement falsely attributed to the Interior Ministry was shared widely on social media, calling on residents not go to shopping malls.

Akeed said the information listed in the report is false, noting that the “internal security section” mentioned in the statement does not exist at the Interior Ministry.

Second on the list is the false news and rumours circulated on social media about the terror attacks in Karak, over 140km south of Amman.

Akeed cited false items on the number of victims, the nationality of the attackers, and that the terrorists had escaped to Tafileh, 40km south of Karak.

Moreover, videos and images from Kurdistan and Palestine were shared widely on social media and described as showing the attacks in Karak, the media monitor said.

The third piece of false news was a statement warning of a group of people posing as employees of the electricity and water companies who were stealing from homes.

The statement quoted “Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ibrahim Yousef from the Interior Ministry”. Akeed said Yousef is a former interior minister of Egypt, noting that the fabricated item had first spread in Egypt, and was later changed and circulated in Jordan.

The Public Security Department dismissed the item as baseless.

The fourth fake news piece on Akeed’s list is a statement about the spread of a deadly scorpion in Jordan that can kill in two seconds. 

The photos posted along with the story, however, are those of a spider that lives in the Americas, Africa, Japan and China, the monitor said, noting that it does not live in Jordan.

False news related to changing school curricula came in fifth place. 

Akeed cited examples such as a picture showing an excerpt from a textbook that reads: “Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.” Those who shared it claimed that it was part of the new third grade book in Jordan, when in fact, it was taken from an Israeli textbook taught in a number of primary schools in occupied Jerusalem.

Number six on the list was a false report claiming that “a dragon” had “fallen from the sky on Irbid and Ajloun”. The video showing the alleged dragon, according to Akeed, was taken from “Cuarto milenio”, a Spanish television programme.

In seventh place is a report circulated in June claiming that a woman from Daesh blew herself up in a mosque in Ain Al Basha.

Akeed said a security source issued a statement debunking the report and warning against falling for such rumours.

For number eight, the monitor lists several fabricated videos and pictures falsely described as depicting the terrorist attack against the army outpost near Rakban on the border with Syria in June that killed seven troops and injured 13.

One picture purportedly showed an injured soldier who was a member of the Jordan Armed Forces-Arab Army, but Akeed said the uniform was not that of the Arab Army and the area was full of civilians, which is not the case at the border outpost.

A second picture falsely claimed that it showed “the mother of one of the martyrs” kissing a military boot. The photo, according to the monitor, is an old one that has been used several times by news websites in connection with stories on social media.

Number nine is “the mother of storms” report, claiming that an “unprecedented snowstorm” — the strongest in 88 years — was going to hit Jordan.

The 10th item on the Akeed list is a report shared on social media in March claiming that an initiative by Yarmouk University in Irbid was seeking to encourage women to wear the “Islamic jilbab”.

The item, which was later debunked as baseless, generated a dialogue on social media, with some supporting the purported initiative and others rejecting it as an encroachment on students’ rights, according to Akeed.