HIBAPRESS – Rabat
Latifa Akharbach, the President of the High Authority for Audiovisual Communication, recorded a growing reliance by Moroccans on social media networks and video platforms to access news.
This came in a speech delivered by Akharbach during her participation in a meeting organized by the Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication on Wednesday in Rabat, the Moroccan capital, regarding combating fake news. Akharbach said, after reviewing a number of figures that confirm this trend, that the decline of the press as a preferred source for accessing news deprives internet users, citizens, of basic editorial guarantees. She added that the press is keen, before publishing the news, to verify the facts, adopt a hierarchy of news according to its importance, in addition to placing the news in its correct context, which are guarantees not found on social media sites. She pointed out that the decline of the mediation of the professional press in securing access to the news contributed to raising the level of the public's exposure to media misinformation, and exacerbating the situation of its fragility in the face of influence strategies, including foreign ones.
