The role of social media in delivering news related to the COVID-19 pandemic: Moroccan community as a case study

The study aims to assess the Moroccan community’s using rate of social media, especially during the imposed lockdown, and analyze how the community is using and exploring the news published on Facebook. In this order, we prepared and shared a survey questionnaire among Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp users. The obtained responses exhibit that only 5% of respondents share the news immediately without verifying the source, while 54 % share news only after verifying the source; the rest did not prefer to share COVID-19 related news. This may reflect the awareness level of the sampled population about the importance of verifying the source of information before sharing it, especially during such conditions. However, 64% of participants think that Social Media platforms are not sufficient and appropriate to warn and inform the population about this sanitary crisis as not all Moroccan citizens have access to the internet and do not use social media. Besides, the COVID-19 period has known a rapid spread of misinformation and fake news through these platforms, impacting community mental health. Although, it is recommended to consider warning people about the best practices and use of shared information through these platforms