social media in Yemen. The platform also focuses on awareness-raising campaigns by publishing videos about how to verify information and the dangers of fake news. The platform’s director, Abdullah Al-Masoudi, explained that Sidq has succeeded in maintaining its neutrality against the background of the conflict in Yemen (interview, July 2021). This has been made feasible especially because its team is made up of people with diverse political orientations, representing all parties to the conflict. Sidq also scrutinizes content related to all parties, without exception. Security concerns prevent the team from appearing in public and from revealing their identity. According to Al-Masoudi, the Sidq platform faces many other challenges, including difficulty in accessing information and a lack of certain skills among team members. They are thus in need of development and training. Al-Masoudi also confirmed the lack of cooperation among fact-checking platforms in the region. He believes that another weakness generally is that many platforms do not specialize in checking content originating from their countries only. This is in addition to the nature of the language used when writing about and explaining the factchecking process to the audience, which is complex and therefore harder for the public or the ordinary reader to understand. VERIFY Five years after the Syrian crisis, the Verify platform was launched in that country through its main office in Turkey. It was established when its founders noticed the massive spread of chaotic information, promoted by all conflicting parties. The platform verifies news, photos, and videos spread about Syria, the region and the world. It also works with a specific methodology and criteria. When publishing results, it includes details regarding the verification process it followed and the sources it relied on. According to its founder and director, Ahmad Primo, Verify relies on its ability to maintain neutrality. Primo explained that the platform faces many challenges, the most significant of which is financial. This prevents the platform from incorporating more development projects. Other challenges include the lack of accurate data, information, and sources in Arabic and difficulties in accessing information, which he considers to be “a problem that has no solution in our region.” In addition to the lack of cooperation, Primo believes I N FO R M ATI O N D I SO R D ER IN THE GLOBA L SOUTH that the most prominent problems and weaknesses of fact-checking platforms in the region are imitation, copying of content, a lack of innovation, and a lack of specialization (interview, July 2021). FALSO The Falso platform is one of the projects of the Libyan Center for Freedom of the Press and Media. It was launched in 2020 with the support of the German foreign ministry in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. Falso focuses on Libyan issues. The platform is divided into two parts, with one section dedicated to monitoring hate speech across Libyan media outlets and another section dedicated to verifying news. The platform was established recently, and it works with a small team and a limited number of participants. The platform’s former editor-in-chief, Asia Ja’afar, stressed that the verification methodology adopted by the platform needs to be further developed. The platform also needs journalists who specialize in investigative journalism and news verification. Ja’afar stressed that Falso needs greater funding and more training for team members. This is in addition to many other challenges, among which are concerns regarding the safety of fact checkers and journalists in a conflict area like Libya. Accessing information is also a challenge, as is the lack of transparency in government institutions. There are other logistical challenges, such as poor electricity supply and internet access, which slow down the work (interview, July 2021). Ja’afar pointed out that there are many outstanding fact-checking platforms in the region, “while there are also platforms that need to make more effort in verifying news and in the way stories are phrased.” TAHAQAQ (MOROCCO) The Tahaqaq platform in Morocco was launched through a voluntary initiative, run by young people, in order to combat the disinformation epidemic that started to sweep the country due to the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. Tahaqaq in Morocco, with a small team consisting of volunteers only, refutes rumors and corrects false news through its accounts on social media. The platform was established recently and is not very active in fact checking. However, one of the team’s fact checkers, Yasmin La’abi, explained during an interview that the platform “is doing important work on the Moroccan digital scene. Recently, the United Nations Development Program Middle East and North Africa – 37