Rumor: American congress commences session with verses from the holy Quran out of fear from the Coronavirus. (Rasd News, 2020)

Truth: A three year old video showing President Donald Trump attending a session to support religious diversities in the Washington National Cathedral -an official tradition implemented by a president when taking up the reins of government. (Al-Assaf, 2020)

In terms of Steinberg’s (2017) types of fake news, this example would fall under the tenth and last type: Bogus. It is so obviously fabricated and can be referred to as disinformation or hoax. The motives were most likely religious and political; the paper is licensed by the Saudi Arabian ministry of culture (Rasd News, n.d.) and media and its writers seem to be very much pro-KSA. Even if you study the name of the article found within the same screenshot above, it praises King Suliman for offering a cure for COVID-19 for free for citizens, residents, and illegal residents.

Fortunately, reactions made towards this news piece and the associated video were mostly calling it out for being false, unrelated to the Coronavirus, and old footage. This proves that people are aware of the phenomenon of fake news and are educated enough to be critically thinkers. However, one cannot deny that some people might still be fooled; there are 23968 views on the article, more than 200 likes and 180 retweets on a tweet (Al-Senani, 2020) sharing the same information, chances are some people fell for it, and even shared it among others!

So, how can we help stop the phenomenon of “fake news”? Ministries of Media must revisit their policies (Kumanyika, 2018) and be selective when it comes to licensing media platforms, because they will eventually be caught and reported. In the case of Saudi Arabia, citizens must be aware that not every news piece which reinforces Islamic ideologies and goes in line with their beliefs is in fact true.

Reference List

Al-Assaf, L. (2020, March). مرصد الدستور يفنّد تسجيلات صوتية و فيديوهات متداولة. Addustour.

Al-Senani, M. [@MusaadAlSenani]. (2020, March 26).مجلس الشيوخ الامريكي بحضور الرئيس #ترمب يفتتحون جلستهم بالقرآن الكريم. [Tweet]. Twitter. https://twitter.com/MusaadAlSenani/status/1243218785391255552

Kumanyika, C. (2018, November 9). Beyond Fake News [Conference Session] Rutgers University. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t10ErbfwG14&feature=youtu.be&t=2925

Rasd News, (2020, March 26). شاهد.. مجلس الشيوخ الأمريكي يستهل جلسته بالقرآن الكريم. Rasd News. Retrieved from https://rasdnews.net/266548/

Rasd News, (n.d). الرئيسية. Rasd News. Retrieved from http://rasdnews.net/

Steinberg, L. (2017, July 26). Infographic: Beyond Fake News – 10 Types of Misleading News – Sixteen Languages. eavi Media Litercay for Citizenship. Eavi Media Literacy for Citizenship. Retrieved from https://eavi.eu/beyond-fake-news-10-types-misleading-info/