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Rabat – Morocco’s General Directorate of National Security (DGSN) denounced the use of false images and videos on social media to spread unfounded rumors about the situation of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in Morocco.
The DGSN released a statement on Tuesday, March 17, in response to a wave of photos and videos that have recently appeared on social media claiming to document cases of people fainting due to COVID-19 in Morocco.
The technical teams of DGSN and the field investigations have proven that all the photos and videos that went viral on social media are not related to COVID-19.
One of the videos shows a young man lying unconscious on the street near a small shop. The DGSN explained that the video was recorded on Monday, March 16, in Tetouan. The man fell unconscious due to an epileptic seizure and not due to the coronavirus as the captions that accompanied the footage claimed.
Another clip, taken near a gas station in Tetouan, shows an unconscious woman lying on the ground. The woman suffered from an asthma attack and received first aid at a local hospital, assured the DGSN.
Meanwhile, technical research proved that two photos showing unconscious people, one on the street and a second on the stairs of a house, were not taken in Morocco.
As for the videos showing a man coughing in the streets of Tangier and a person lying on the ground in Casablanca, investigations revealed that health authorities did not detect any COVID-19 cases or respond to emergencies at the locations of the videos.
The DGSN will continue to keep citizens informed about the veracity of documents circulating on social media, warning those responsible for spreading false news and rumors.
Amid the global fears from the COVID-19 pandemic, fake news and rumors aiming to cause panic among citizens have appeared to multiply on Moroccan social media networks.
In response, authorities have doubled their efforts to arrest the suspects behind the false reports and to improve communication with the public regarding the COVID-19 situation in Morocco.
