Report on misinformation in Sudan: fake news campaign prelude for coup

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The Sudan Fact-Check Network project, affiliated with Sudanese news outlet Beam Reports, published a report analysing the disinformation environment in Sudan amidst the increased spread of disinformation in its media space. It found that misinformation campaigns played a role in the October 2021 military coup.

The report, called Share Mania: Mapping Misinformation and Disinformation in Sudan, also addresses specific rumours and disinformation and monitors actors involved in the spread of misinformation.

It was published two days ago but written in November and investigates misinformation from September 2021 to October 2022.

Beam Reports calls itself “a data-driven, citizen-centric web-based explanatory news company […] obsessed with empowering the public with trustworthy explanatory news to increase citizen participation and counter disinformation and misinformation”.

It was found that disinformation was often spread using the following tools and tactics: image and video clip fabrication, document fabrication, using outdated media, spreading outdated news, Coordinated Inauthentic Behaviour (CIB), and hashtag spamming.

The study revealed the reasons for releasing disinformation, citing political, security-related, ideological, and personal agendas, as well as “reasons related to polishing the image of specific public figures or institutions in what is known as reputation laundering”.

The study also found proof of international interference in Sudan’s digital environment. They explain that “there are interventions by some regional powers in the Sudanese digital sphere, targeting specific political figures and issues relevant to their interests in Sudan”.

‘There are interventions by some regional powers in the Sudanese digital sphere, targeting specific political figures and issues relevant to their interests in Sudan’

October 2021 coup

The report introduces a series of misinformation campaigns it detected. The “mentioned campaigns can be defined as waves of wholly or partly fabricated content disseminated on a regular and organised basis, with the aim of misleading, distracting, or testing public opinion towards a particular issue or incident”.

One of the first examples investigated in the report is a wave of disinformation before the October 25, 2021, military coup.

Since October 10, 2021, a seemingly systematic campaign was organised on Sudanese social media, flooding it with rumours and disinformation, the report explains. Certain Facebook accounts “exchanged a lot of misleading information and rumours that revolved around political and security issues”.

Since the coup, Beam Reports’ disinformation observatory Marsad Beam has noted the increased spread of rumours and disinformation on social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

The study explains “how prolusion for the coup took place by misleading public opinion and disseminating some disinformation that may have been spread for the purpose of testing public opinion and monitoring potential reactions”.

Of 23 fact-checks carried out by Beam Reports, only three were true, whilst 11 were misleading and nine were fabricated.

‘Prolusion for the coup took place by misleading public opinion’

The report highlights a series of fake news items spread in the days before the coup that contain alleged calls from various groups to dissolve the government.

For example, on October 10, many pages circulated a post stating that Volker Perthes, head of the United Nations Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS), had proposed to Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok to dissolve the government in power and form a new government with technocrats as 70 per cent of its members.

The fake news came in light of clear turmoil among the ruling partners in Sudan at the time.  After reaching out to UNITAMS, Beam Reports concluded that the circulated post was fabricated.

Similarly, on October 18, after the spread of the Perthes news that included the phrase “dissolving the government”, the National Charter group announced that it would organise sit-in protests in front of the Republican Palace in Khartoum, demanding the dissolution of the government.

Attendance to the sit-ins quickly dwindled. Then, a video clip was posted showing a convoy of trucks and it was claimed that the convoy was coming from eastern Sudan to take part in the sit-in.

After fact-checking, however, it was found that the clip was from 2019 and unrelated to the 2021 sit-in.

The most prominent page out of the ones that circulated the post is one that supports the dissolved Operations Corps affiliated with the National Intelligence Service of the former regime and owes its loyalty to the defunct Al Bashir dictatorship.

Several other fake news reports were cited, all meant to test public opinion, create confusion, and set the precedent for a regime change.

Legislation and abuse

In 2020, Sudan adopted the Cybercrime Act 2020, Article 24, but the researchers explain that, at least until the time of drafting this report, Sudanese legislation did not provide a clear definition of disinformation or rumours.

“The law was content with the term “fake news” without a clear definition, except for mentioning that the perpetrator spread the information “knowingly that it is not true”.

This could easily lead to abuse of the legislation in undemocratic conditions.

According to the Cybercrime Act 2020, Article 24, someone can receive up to four years of imprisonment for spreading digital fake news.

Both the Cybercrime Act and the Penal Code 1991, Article 66, mention but do not define the following terms: rumour, public safety, and sovereignty of the state.

“These pompous phrases may lead to abuse by the authorities especially under non-democratic conditions,” the report states.