As 2024 came to an end, Fact Crescendo Myanmar has reviewed the most popular misinformation campaigns among social media users over the past year, and political topics are repeated in misinformation trends.
While scams and misinformation campaigns for financial gain continue to thrive on social media platforms, some have evolved into very subtle campaigns. On YouTube, political misinformation or fabricated news stories continued to top the list of fact-check stories last year. Internationally, Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump were more popular than the Israel-Middle East and Ukraine-Russia wars.
The NUG, PDF and ethnic armed groups have taken over cities one by one during 2024. Still, apart from occasional guerrilla attacks by the end of the year, the revolutionary groups have not militarily touched the major cities such as Yangon, Mandalay and Nay Pyi Taw. However, videos claiming that Yangon, Mandalay, Nay Pyi Taw and Taunggyi have been captured are still a frequent misinformation feature in Fact Crescendo Myanmar’s fact-checking section.
Along with the frequent misleading reports on the purported release of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been in detention since the coup, this year’s new misinformation campaigns had alleged the flee abroad of military leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and the coup military enacted conscription law.
With the revolutionary forces gaining strength and capturing many cities, the besiege of capital cities has become a topic of choice for disinformation, or military leaders flee abroad, especially when the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for him.
But fake news spreaders are constantly looking for new and misleading audience-alike stories to spread on major social media platforms. As a basic rule, popular platforms make money based on the number of views they receive.
Most popular fake titles on YouTube
As mentioned above, headlines like Aung San Suu Kyi has been released, Aung San Suu Kyi has died, international actors sentenced military leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing to death, or he has fled abroad are some of the headlines Fact Crescendo Myanmar has frequently fact-checked.
Other popular themes for political falsehoods include ethnic armed groups and PDFs taking over Yangon, Mandalay, and Nay Pyi Taw and the military leader stepping down and handing over power to Aung San Suu Kyi. While these stories could turn out to be true soon also, like the Assad regime in Syria, as the political and military landscape was changing fast, they remain fake news stories for now. Fake news headlines claiming that the military has abolished the military conscription law were also popular, as the military continues to recruit people in areas it controls to monthly-opened training.
Eating two foods together can kill you; traditional medicine, milk powder for diabetes.
The claim that traditional medicine is better than modern medicine, the advertising of milk powder as a cure for diabetes, and that eating two foods together can kill you are some of the health misinformation Fact Crescendo Myanmar investigated in 2024.
Many Burmese people believe that they should not eat several fruits and meat together or that they should not eat two certain fruits together. In fact, the foods that are advised as not being eaten together are the foods that people often eat together. But these fake posts are often as popular as clickbait posts on Facebook that promise to give you valuable items.
Share a post, solve a puzzle and get a valuable gift
Among the most shared clickbait posts in 2024 were those that claimed to be from world-famous brands that offered valuable gifts just by sharing a post and solving a puzzle. These posts ranged from pizza restaurants like Pizza Hut and Shopping Mall Makro to Samsung phones and Coca-Cola drinks.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump were more popular
The way Myanmar social media users practice for consuming internationally viral topics reshaped patterns in 2024. While wars involving Israel and Russia are usually popular in Myanmar, international wars that cost many lives and caused distract to their hearts were no more interesting than those about two individuals: Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, and US President-elect Donald Trump. While international war news was fairly widespread, it was not as popular as the domestic war, so fake news did not target these headlines.
