Facebook and its impact on spreading rumors during wars and crises War in Sudan as a Model (2023-2024 AD) Facebook and its impact on spreading rumors

Mohamed El Amin Ahmed Mohamed El Amin (1)
(1) College of Arts and Media, University of Hail, Saudi Arabia
Fulltext View | Download
How to cite (COMIEN) :
Mohamed El Amin, M. E. A. A. (2025). Facebook and its impact on spreading rumors during wars and crises War in Sudan as a Model (2023-2024 AD): Facebook and its impact on spreading rumors . International Journal on Computational Engineering, 2(4), 154–161. https://doi.org/10.62527/comien.2.4.42

This research seeks to examine the influence of social media especially Facebook in the spread of fake news during the war in Sudan. Based on five developed hypotheses related to the correlational and causal link between SNS use, user skepticism and spreading rumours, we conducted a survey. The research confirmed a positive relationship between the use of social media and information sharing, including misinformation (H1). Although skepticism was found to have no negative impact on information sharing (H2 not supported). Moreover, the role of celebrities and activists was identified as the factor increasing the rate of rumor diffusion (H3 supported), as well as the need for media literacy campaigns (H4 supported). However, it was discovered that official communication strategies did not fully do the job (H5 NOT supported). As a result, these findings underscore the widening}, needs for specific efforts in curbing social media practices, in screening Influencer posts, and in strengthening the educational campaigns against false information. More work should continue to be done on the factors that contribute to the spread of fake news and assess the efficacy of particular measures to enhance citizenship knowledge.

S. C. Watkins, The Young and the Digital: What the Migration to Social-Network Sites, Games, and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for Our Future. Boston, MA, USA: Beacon Press, 2009.

T. Karr, C. Aaron, and F. Press, “Beyond fixing Facebook,” Free Press, Washington, DC, USA, Tech. Rep., 2019, vol. 8.

S. Levy, Facebook: The Inside Story. London, U.K.: Penguin UK, 2020.

V. Taprial and P. Kanwar, Google Beyond Google. Frederiksberg, Denmark: Bookboon, 2011.

C. Abram and A. Karasavas, Facebook For Dummies. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, 2021.

R. B. B. Mbima, “Digital and printed media and its effects for conflict resolution and societal peace in Côte d’Ivoire, between 2002 and 2011,” Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. Econ. Law, Technischen Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 2021.

D. Kilcullen and G. Mills, The Art of War and Peace: Understanding Our Choices in a World at War. Cape Town, South Africa: Penguin Random House South Africa, 2024.

E. Odole, “Crisis communication on X (formerly Twitter): Information, misinformation, and the role of the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture during the EndSars protest in Nigeria,” M.A. thesis, Sch. Commun. Arts, Regent Univ., Virginia Beach, VA, USA, 2023.

M. M. Waldrop, “The genuine problem of fake news,” Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., vol. 114, no. 48, pp. 12631–12634, Nov. 2017, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1719005114.

A. K. Okwori, “Understanding the effects of social media-channelled fake news on conflicts in Nigeria: Case of farmers/herders conflicts in the Benue State,” Master’s thesis, Dept. Media Stud., Univ. Sussex, Sussex, U.K., 2020.

T. Pavleska, A. Školkay, B. Zankova, N. Ribeiro, and A. Bechmann, “Performance analysis of fact-checking organizations and initiatives in Europe: A critical overview of online platforms fighting fake news,” in Social Media and Convergence, S. Štětka, Ed. 2018, pp. 1–28.

K. Sharma, F. Qian, H. Jiang, N. Ruchansky, M. Zhang, and Y. Liu, “Combating fake news: A survey on identification and mitigation techniques,” ACM Trans. Intell. Syst. Technol., vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 1–42, May 2019, doi: 10.1145/3305260.

R. I. Rotberg and T. G. Weiss, Eds., From Massacres to Genocide: The Media, Public Policy, and Humanitarian Crises. Washington, DC, USA: Brookings Institution Press, 2002.

J. J. F. Forest, Digital Influence Warfare in the Age of Social Media. Santa Barbara, CA, USA: ABC-CLIO, 2021. doi: 10.5040/9798400640643.

M. Shahbazi and D. Bunker, “Social media trust: Fighting misinformation in the time of crisis,” Int. J. Inf. Manage., vol. 77, p. 102780, Aug. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2024.102780.

K. Aal, “Influence of social media in a changing landscape of crisis,” in Medien der Kooperation – Media of Cooperation. Wiesbaden, Germany: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden, 2024, pp. 57–69. doi: 10.1007/978-3-658-45517-0_3.

A. Silver and L. Matthews, “The use of Facebook for information seeking, decision support, and self-organization following a significant disaster,” Inf., Commun. Soc., vol. 20, no. 11, pp. 1680–1697, Nov. 2017, doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2016.1253762.

B. Carminati, E. Ferrari, and M. Viviani, Security and Trust in Online Social Networks. Cham, Switzerland: Springer Nature, 2022.

G. Enli and L. T. Rosenberg, “Trust in the age of social media: Populist politicians seem more authentic,” Soc. Media Soc., vol. 4, no. 1, Jan. 2018, doi: 10.1177/2056305118764430.

R. Moldovan, “The social media revolution that failed: Lessons from the Arab spring,” Redefining Community Intercultural Context, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 257–269, 2020.

V. Kanellopoulos, V. Trianatafyllou, C. Koutsojannis, and E. Lekkas, “The role of social media to the natural disaster or crisis management,” in Proc. 17th Int. Conf. Inf., Intell. Syst. Appl. (IISA), 2023, pp. 1–4.

J. Reid and D. T. McKinley, Tell Our Story. Johannesburg, South Africa: Wits Univ. Press, 2020. doi: 10.18772/22020055775.

C. Choi and S. H. Jee, “Differential effects of information and communication technology on (de-)democratization of authoritarian regimes,” Int. Stud. Quart., vol. 65, no. 4, pp. 1163–1175, Dec. 2021, doi: 10.1093/isq/sqab053.

X. Zhang and A. A. Ghorbani, “An overview of online fake news: Characterization, detection, and discussion,” Inf. Process. Manag., vol. 57, no. 2, p. 102025, Mar. 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.ipm.2019.03.004.

S. (Ada) Wang, M.-S. Pang, and P. A. Pavlou, “Cure or poison? Identity verification and the posting of fake news on social media,” in Fake News on the Internet, N. J. Cooke, Ed. New York, NY, USA: Routledge, 2023, ch. 6, pp. 119–146. doi: 10.4324/9781003433934-6.

S. Wang, M.-S. Pang, and P. A. Pavlou, “Seeing is believing? How including a video in fake news influences users’ reporting of fake news to social media platforms,” MIS Quart., vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 1323–1354, Sep. 2022.

H. J. Larson, Stuck: How Vaccine Rumors Start—and Why They Don’t Go Away. New York, NY, USA: Oxford Univ. Press, 2020.

A. Weiss, The Dark Side of Our Digital World. Lanham, MD, USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2020. doi: 10.5771/9781538119068.

G. Cosentino, Social Media and the Post-Truth World Order. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-43005-4.

D. C. Youvan, “Media control and public perception: How rapid news cycles, selective access, and tribal loyalty shape modern narratives,” SSRN Electron. J., 2024, doi: 10.2139/ssrn.4768591.

B. Collins, D. T. Hoang, N. T. Nguyen, and D. Hwang, “Trends in combating fake news on social media – a survey,” J. Inf. Telecommun., vol. 5, no. 2, pp. 247–266, Apr. 2021, doi: 10.1080/24751839.2020.1847379.

S. S. Almakaty, “New trends in communication and media education in the digital age: A global analysis and comparison study,” Preprints, Oct. 14, 2024, doi: 10.20944/preprints202410.1022.v1.

N. R. Bhatt et al., “A systematic review of the use of social media for dissemination of clinical practice guidelines,” Eur. Urol. Focus, vol. 7, no. 5, pp. 1195–1204, Sep. 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.euf.2020.10.008.

P. V. G. Reddy, “A study on public relations, journalists, and social media using the lens of trust or distrust,” J. Inform. Educ. Res., vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 241–250, 2024, doi: 10.52783/jier.v4i2.973.

D. Human-Van Eck, C. Pentz, and T. Beyers, “Influencers on Instagram: The influence of disclosure, followers and authority heuristic on source credibility,” in Advances in Digital Marketing and eCommerce, F. J. Martínez-López and S. D’Alessandro, Eds. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2021, pp. 291–304. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-76520-0_31.

A. K. Jain, S. R. Sahoo, and J. Kaubiyal, “Online social networks security and privacy: Comprehensive review and analysis,” Complex Intell. Syst., vol. 7, no. 5, pp. 2157–2177, Oct. 2021, doi: 10.1007/s40747-021-00409-7.

C. Pelau, M.-I. Pop, M. Stanescu, and G. Sanda, “The breaking news effect and its impact on the credibility and trust in information posted on social media,” Electronics, vol. 12, no. 2, p. 423, Jan. 2023, doi: 10.3390/electronics12020423.

E.-C. Gross and D. C. Balaban, “The effectiveness of an educational intervention on countering disinformation moderated by intellectual humility,” Media Commun., vol. 13, 2025, Art. no. 9109, doi: 10.17645/mac.9109.

M. Rapti, G. Tsakalidis, S. Petridou, and K. Vergidis, “Fake news incidents through the lens of the DCAM disinformation blueprint,” Information, vol. 13, no. 7, p. 306, Jun. 2022, doi: 10.3390/info13070306.

P. Mihailidis and S. Viotty, “Spreadable spectacle in digital culture: Civic expression, fake news, and the role of media literacies in ‘post-fact’ society,” Amer. Behav. Sci., vol. 61, no. 4, pp. 441–454, Apr. 2017, doi: 10.1177/0002764217701217.

P. Horwich, “A defense of minimalism,” Synthese, vol. 126, no. 1/2, pp. 149–165, 2001.

H. Cho, J. Cannon, R. Lopez, and W. Li, “Social media literacy: A conceptual framework,” New Media Soc., vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 941–960, Feb. 2024, doi: 10.1177/14614448211068530.

R. S. Kington, S. Arnesen, W.-Y. S. Chou, S. J. Curry, D. Lazer, and A. M. Villarruel, “Identifying credible sources of health information in social media: Principles and attributes,” NAM Perspect., Discussion Paper, Nat. Acad. Med., Washington, DC, USA, Jul. 2021, doi: 10.31478/202107a.

P. Agarwal, R. Al Aziz, and J. Zhuang, “Interplay of rumor propagation and clarification on social media during crisis events – A game-theoretic approach,” Eur. J. Oper. Res., vol. 298, no. 2, pp. 714–733, Apr. 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.ejor.2021.06.060.

L. Feldman and P. S. Hart, “Upping the ante? The effects of ‘emergency’ and ‘crisis’ framing in climate change news,” Clim. Change, vol. 169, no. 1–2, p. 10, Nov. 2021, doi: 10.1007/s10584-021-03219-5.

K. Ali, C. Li, K. Zain-ul-Abdin, and S. A. Muqtadir, “The effects of emotions, individual attitudes towards vaccination, and social endorsements on perceived fake news credibility and sharing motivations,” Comput. Hum. Behav., vol. 134, p. 107307, Sep. 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2022.107307.

K. Schneeberger McGugan, I. S. Horn, B. Garner, and S. A. Marshall, “‘Even when it was hard, you pushed us to improve’: Emotions and teacher learning in coaching conversations,” Teach. Teach. Educ., vol. 121, p. 103934, Jan. 2023, doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2022.103934.

J. Pandey, Nature and Dynamics of Social Influence. Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore, 2022. doi: 10.1007/978-981-19-4598-4.

J. P. Luna, S. Toro, and S. Valenzuela, “Amplifying counter-public spheres on social media: News sharing of alternative versus traditional media after the 2019 Chilean uprising,” Soc. Media Soc., vol. 8, no. 1, Jan. 2022, doi: 10.1177/20563051221077308.

T. Quandt, S. Boberg, T. Schatto-Eckrodt, and L. Frischlich, “Pandemic news: Facebook pages of mainstream news media and the coronavirus crisis – A computational content analysis,” arXiv:2005.13290, May 2020.

D. C. Youvan, “The evolution of US mainstream media headlines: From investigative journalism to sensationalism in the digital age,” SSRN Electron. J., 2024, doi: 10.2139/ssrn.4731572.

K. Ahmed et al., “Social media’s dark secrets: A propagation, lexical and psycholinguistic oriented deep learning approach for fake news proliferation,” Expert Syst. Appl., vol. 255, p. 124650, Dec. 2024, doi: 10.1016/j.eswa.2024.124650.

R. Heiss et al., “Socio-ecological responses to misinformation on social media: A framework for multilayered action,” SSRN Electron. J., 2024, doi: 10.2139/ssrn.4895743.

M. Muhlmeyer and S. Agarwal, Information Spread in a Social Media Age. Boca Raton, FL, USA: CRC Press, 2021. doi: 10.1201/9780429263842.

Y. Li, Y. Chandra, and N. Kapucu, “Crisis coordination and the role of social media in response to COVID-19 in Wuhan, China,” Amer. Rev. Public Adm., vol. 50, no. 6-7, pp. 698–705, Aug. 2020, doi: 10.1177/0275074020942105.

M. S. Islam et al., “COVID-19–Related infodemic and its impact on public health: A global social media analysis,” Amer. J. Trop. Med. Hyg., vol. 103, no. 4, pp. 1621–1629, Oct. 2020, doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.20-0812.

S. Taylor et al., “Opinion forming in the digital age: Fake news, echo chambers and populism – Key themes, concerns & recommendations for European research and innovation,” Eur. Commission, Brussels, Belgium, Tech. Rep., 2018.

B. T. K., C. S. R. Annavarapu, and A. Bablani, “Machine learning algorithms for social media analysis: A survey,” Comput. Sci. Rev., vol. 40, p. 100395, May 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.cosrev.2021.100395.

C. Bruce, H. Hughes, and M. M. Somerville, “Supporting informed learners in the twenty-first century,” Libr. Trends, vol. 60, no. 3, pp. 522–545, Dec. 2012, doi: 10.1353/lib.2012.0009.

M. Schoch-Spana et al., “The public’s role in COVID-19 vaccination: Human-centered recommendations to enhance pandemic vaccine awareness, access, and acceptance in the United States,” Vaccine, vol. 39, no. 40, pp. 6004–6012, Sep. 2021, doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2020.10.059.

A. J. Gonzalez, D. P. Cingel, and L. Vandenbosch, “A systematic content analysis of the moral foundations featured in celebrities’, influencers’, and athletes’ Instagram content,” Mass Commun. Soc., vol. 27, no. 6, pp. 1580–1608, Nov. 2024, doi: 10.1080/15205436.2024.2317764.

S. H. Chaffee and M. J. Metzger, “The end of mass communication?,” Mass Commun. Soc., vol. 4, no. 4, pp. 365–379, Nov. 2001, doi: 10.1207/S15327825MCS0404_3.

A. Zubiaga, M. Liakata, R. Procter, G. Wong Sak Hoi, and P. Tolmie, “Analysing how people orient to and spread rumours in social media by looking at conversational threads,” PLoS ONE, vol. 11, no. 3, p. e0150989, Mar. 2016, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0150989.

V. Hirschhäuser and S. Winter, “Moral comments in social media: Analyzing the role of ideology-matching moral framing and impression motivation in the persuasive effect of user comments on YouTube,” Mass Commun. Soc., vol. 28, no. 5, pp. 779–804, Sep. 2025, doi: 10.1080/15205436.2024.2415019.

A. Freytag, D. Possler, N. Spreen, A. A. Raney, and C. Klimmt, “Explaining the rich entertainment appeal of nature documentaries and its conflicting motivational consequences,” Mass Commun. Soc., pp. 1–33, Nov. 2024, doi: 10.1080/15205436.2024.2415987.

K. Shu, D. Mahudeswaran, S. Wang, D. Lee, and H. Liu, “FakeNewsNet: A data repository with news content, social context, and spatiotemporal information for studying fake news on social media,” Big Data, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 171–188, Jun. 2020, doi: 10.1089/big.2020.0062.

P. Seib, Information at War: Journalism, Disinformation, and Modern Warfare. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 2021.

L. Schirch, “Digital information, conflict and democracy,” in Social Media Impacts on Conflict and Democracy, N. R. F. Alves and L. Schirch, Eds. New York, NY, USA: Routledge, 2021, pp. 21–42. doi: 10.4324/9781003087649-2.

F. Olan, U. Jayawickrama, E. O. Arakpogun, J. Suklan, and S. Liu, “Fake news on social media: The impact on society,” Inf. Syst. Front., vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 443–458, Apr. 2024, doi: 10.1007/s10796-022-10242-z.

C. Duffy, “The Facebook Papers may be the biggest crisis in the company’s history,” CNN, Oct. 25, 2021.

P. Iosifidis and N. Nicoli, “The battle to end fake news: A qualitative content analysis of Facebook announcements on how it combats disinformation,” Int. Commun. Gaz., vol. 82, no. 1, pp. 60–81, Feb. 2020, doi: 10.1177/1748048519880729.

F. Bünzli and O. Alizadeh-Afrouzi, “User engagement on Facebook: Examining the role of visual and verbal politeness cues,” Mass Commun. Soc., vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 581–604, Jul. 2025, doi: 10.1080/15205436.2024.2311230.

Y. Jin, B. F. Liu, and L. L. Austin, “Examining the role of social media in effective crisis management: The effects of crisis origin, information form, and source on publics’ crisis responses,” Commun. Res., vol. 41, no. 1, pp. 74–94, Feb. 2014, doi: 10.1177/0093650211423918.

N. Greenberg, How Information Warfare Shaped the Arab Spring. Edinburgh, U.K.: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 2019. doi: 10.1515/9781474453974.

J. J. Yoo, T. J. Johnson, and I. Lacasa-Mas, “The dynamics of misinformation sharing: The mediated role of news-finds-me perception and the moderated role of partisan social identity,” Mass Commun. Soc., pp. 1–27, Sep. 2024, doi: 10.1080/15205436.2024.2401842.

P. Meel and D. K. Vishwakarma, “Fake news, rumor, information pollution in social media and web: A contemporary survey of state-of-the-arts, challenges and opportunities,” Expert Syst. Appl., vol. 153, p. 112986, Sep. 2020, doi: 10.1016/j.eswa.2019.112986.

C. R. Sunstein, On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done. Princeton, NJ, USA: Princeton Univ. Press, 2014. doi: 10.1515/9781400851225.