6.1 LEBANON: FACT CHECK LEBANON At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, the Lebanese Ministry of Information and the NNA launched the Fact Check Lebanon website, in cooperation with the WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the UNDP (UNICEF 2020). The site specializes in verifying fake news and aims to “help the public and the media access truthful information about fake news and rumors that are circulating, especially on the Internet.”14 The site classifies the news it verifies as “true,” “unconfirmed,” or “fake.” Apart from political news, the site scrutinizes news related to health, the novel coronavirus, society, economy, and business. At the time of completion of this study, there were no posts in the technology and culture sections. The site allows citizens to create accounts and to report rumors to be scrutinized by a team from the NNA, trained in fact checking by Agence FrancePresse (AFP). The site does not have any social media accounts; news is published through the accounts of the NNA and the Ministry of Information. The site does not show evidence of a clear or detailed work methodology for fact checking; only the tools used are indicated. Nor does the site contain a code of principles or a correction policy. An examination of the posted news reveals that the site is not very active and does not publish much apart from a few news pieces and videos. The site primarily depends on communication with official sources to verify information. It shows a brief write-up of the conclusion of the verification process, but the process itself is not shown and no comparisons or clarifications are provided.15 Lebanese people rarely interact with the site, whether with the news posted on the site or with its social media pages.16 The site may be viewed as an unreliable source by many Lebanese people, especially since it is affiliated with an official body in a country which has been experiencing severe political and economic crises since the end of 2019. Many people lost confidence in the political class after the October 17 Revolution of that year. Nonetheless, the importance of this initiative I N FO R M ATI O N D I SO R D ER IN THE GLOBA L SOUTH cannot be ignored, since it has contributed to refuting rumors that caused widespread confusion, especially in the sensitive circumstances that Lebanon finds itself in. The director of the NNA, Ziad Harfouche, confirmed that the decision was made to launch the site “with whatever capabilities we had and with the work team we had.” He stressed that the site “does not claim to be stemming or eliminating sources of false news but tries to limit its spread as much as possible” (interview, June 2021). According to Harfouche, the most significant challenge facing the agency, besides the lack of certain capabilities, is that “it is an official agency. This means that it has the responsibility to correct false news. The problem is the inability to mention which media outlet published the false news, because this will get us into legal disputes, which we do not need.” This challenge prompted the site to focus on scrutinizing news spread through WhatsApp and social media sites instead of focusing on media outlets. 6.2 JORDAN: HAGGAK TAARIF In 2018, the Jordanian government launched an official electronic platform entitled Haggak Taarif (It’s Your Right to Know) to verify information and deny rumors. The platform is not very active. It lists rumors and corrects them briefly based on communication with official authorities only. The platform also publishes some awareness-raising messages like “Steps to Dealing with Rumors,” “The Harmful Effects of Rumors on Civil Society,” and others.17 The site clearly registers a low number of views.18 The platform has an application on Google Play and on the Apple Store. It also has an account on Facebook, which had more than 81,000 followers in July 2021.19 Its Twitter account boasted more than 60,000 followers in July 2021, but the posts show low interactions.20 Besides sending queries, citizens also tend to direct a great deal of criticism towards the platform, questioning its work and its credibility. Some of the information posted by the platform was questioned and later revealed to be false. For example, someone described it as a content-free platform.21 Another tweeted that Haggak Taarif cannot refute most of the news because it is true, so now it fabricates news and then refutes it,22 and someone else argued that the platform had stopped denying rumors and turned into a school radio segment under the title “Do you know?”23 Another citizen questioned the Jordanian Minister of State for Media Affairs about Middle East and North Africa – 48