How Social Media Spurred a Refugee Crisis Between Spain and Morocco
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Two days before tens of thousands of migrants surged into Ceuta, one of Spain's enclaves on Morocco's northern coast, a newspaper there posted a video on TikTok and Instagram showing two young women walking in the city in wet suits, their hair still damp. The posts didn't say so explicitly, but the implication was clear: The women had…
According to a report from The New York Times, two days before a large influx of migrants entered Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on Morocco's northern coast, a local newspaper posted videos on TikTok and Instagram. The videos showed two young women walking in wet suits, their hair wet, implying they had just swum across the border from Morocco.
El Faro de Ceuta, the newspaper, declared that Ceuta could not handle any more migrants. However, the reactions to these posts differed significantly on either side of the border. In Ceuta, the posts were seen as a cry for help, while on the Moroccan side, the cropped and reposted videos appeared as an invitation, with the women smiling, making peace signs, and giving thumbs up.
The videos were interpreted as legitimizing rumors that had been circulating on social media for weeks. These rumors suggested that a recent ruling by Spain's Supreme Court would allow migrants who arrived illegally by sea to stay in the country. A Facebook account falsely claimed that Ceuta was turning into an open gate, when in reality, migrants still faced expulsion after a judicial review.
This disinformation, experts say, was a critical part of a cascade of misinformation that directly contributed to a real-world tragedy.
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