published in Arabic. Atif, Mahdy, and Moustafa (2020, 8) stated in 2020 that the algorithm had screened 12,000 samples and that its accuracy rate had reached 99.4 percent. In Morocco, Maakoul et al. (2021, 4) used a logistic regression algorithm for classifying news on Facebook; it generates fifty keywords that would indicate that the information is fake and thirty keywords that would indicate that the information is true. Another study used a baseline model, XGBoost, with TF-IDF (term frequency and inverse document frequency) values and a deep learning classification model, convolutional neural networks (CNNs), to classify satirical news, with a proven accuracy of 98.6 percent (Saadany, Mohamed, and Orasan, 2020, 7). A more sophisticated and hybrid method was utilized by Sabbeh and Baatwah (2018) in the form of a decision tree, a support vector machine (SVM), and naive Bayesian (NB) classification to assess the credibility of 800 Arabic news items on Twitter. This method, which was implemented using a J48 decision tree classifier, showed an accuracy level of 88.9 percent (Sabbeh and Baatwah 2018, 2327). In addition to the identification of fake news, AI can be used to measure the impact of fake news on audiences. Albahli et al. (2021) took advantage of this feature to measure the feelings of citizens in Gulf states regarding the pandemic, as expressed on Twitter. The researchers utilized the Tweepy API (application programming interface) to extract the tweets and analyzed them with the help of TextBlob_ar. The results show that positive feelings prevailed in the region, in spite of the fear fueled by fake news spread on Twitter (Albahli et al. 2021, 1615). 4.4 LEGISLATION Legislation has the potential to complement efforts to combat fake news. The parliaments of many Arab countries have enacted laws that criminalize fake news. Egypt enacted a law in 2018 that legitimates the blockage of any platform publishing fake news and penalizes the journalists who manage it; however, this law has been criticized because it can be used to crack down on journalists rather than combating fake news (Mutsvairo and Bebawi 2019, 144). In some other countries there are no laws I N FO R M ATI O N D I SO R D ER IN THE GLOBA L SOUTH that can contribute to deterring disinformation. Al Qasamy (2021, 31) found that the lack of relevant legislation in Morocco led to many sectors being targeted by disinformation in the wake of Covid-19. The Moroccan government subsequently passed a law according to which anyone disseminating fake news would be penalized; however, this law is not effective in deterring fake news related to political issues (Al Qasamy 2021, 29–30). In Iraq, the law penalizes the spreading of rumors with fines and imprisonment (Hijij and Hamza 2018, 245). However, this legislation is outdated, as it was enacted in 1969. The same problem prevails in Tunisia, as the relevant law was enacted in 2004 and is unable to keep up with developments. The election legislation also does not deal with the potential of fake news on social media (Elswah and Howard 2020, 5). Al Qasamy (2021, 28) has proposed the enacting of new laws or the amendment of outdated laws to bridge the gap between legislation and the media that are abused by disseminators of fake news. However, at the same time, Atif, Mahdy, and Moustafa (2020, 37) have raised the fear that amendments could be instrumentalized to impose more restrictions on media freedom. It is probably for this reason that Al Qasamy (2021, 33) emphasizes that the new laws should comply with international criteria. Elswah and Howard (2020, 5) have recommended that the treatment of fake news be incorporated into other laws, such as personal data protection and electoral legislation, to enable this legislation to keep up with the nature of modern political campaigns, where disinformation is often weaponized by opposing parties. Al Qasamy (2021, 26) has also asserted that legislation cannot provide a solution on its own; in addition, journalists should be sufficiently trained to adapt to digital media and use the available technology to counter fake news. Mutsvairo and Bebawi (2019, 153) have proposed that media legislation be covered in courses in media education. The literature thus shows that different methods of combating fake news must be used to complement each other. 4.5 SUGGESTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH In general, the number of academic studies tackling fake news in the Arab world is low compared to the number of the relevant studies globally. For instance, a search for “fake news” on Google Scholar delivers 582,000 results, while the equivalent term in Arabic—‫—ةفئازلا رابخألا‬generates only 173 results. There is no term in Arabic that is equivalent Middle East and North Africa – 7 1