Beyond Fake News?
Abdullah Rizk Abu Seimaza
Last week, both the Rapid Support Forces and the Armed Forces, in separate statements, agreed to deny the validity of recent news regarding the approaching negotiations in Jeddah and the announcement of a ceasefire agreement.
According to military sources, their negotiating delegation, which returned from Jeddah the previous Wednesday, is still in the country, indicating that negotiations have been suspended directly and indirectly since that time until now (from Wednesday, July 26 to Wednesday, August 2).
Despite no official publications during this period from the military or the Rapid Support Forces about the latest developments in the Jeddah negotiations, social media, in particular, witnessed a flow of news unsupported by known and reliable sources. These news reports spoke about the imminent declaration of a three-month ceasefire, but varied in secondary details from one narrative to another.
One exception among those unknown sources is attributed to the President of the Federal Gathering Party, Bakr Faisal, regarding the same subject. However, the source of his statement was neither verified nor confirmed.
The double denial from the military and the Rapid Support Forces regarding any developments in the negotiations puts the statement into question, questioning its sources and reliability. The President of the Federal Gathering Party is not a party to the Jeddah negotiations and thus not in a position to have access to the details of the negotiations. His statement, therefore, lacks credibility or access to informed sources.
Since the outbreak of the war, fake news has been one of its tools to influence public opinion and reshape it. The fake news and subsequent denials necessarily aim to create confusion and chaos among the anti-war front, pushing citizens who have suffered four months of war and are eager for an immediate cessation of hostilities into frustration and then pessimism about future developments in the course of the war. The suspension of negotiations for more than a week, without any indications of imminent resumption, does not bode well and only exacerbates the suffering of citizens caught between the fear of death and forced displacement.
