As a fact-checker in the AJ Sanad fact-checking agency, I occasionally come across a new trending rumor that has shades of colors close, deceiving, dressed up in distinct characteristics that resemble the truth and distributed via social media.

In August, a claim has been shared online about Mo Salah has donated three million Egyptian dollars to help rebuild a church in Giza, Egypt where a fire killed 41 people.

In fact, we found one piece of key context missing from these social media posts is that no reliable source for Salah’s donation – only he offered his condolences. After media publishing facilitated misinformation stirred up online, the claim even has been refuted by Egyptian MPs.

However, this didn’t stop the rumor, social media discussions among different audiences and opinion conflicts spread beyond sports.

It was discussed by my colleagues and me how many major news outlets fall victim to this claim without checking the original sources. It was like media was reporting news from other media and journalists. This rumor pushed to rule out the most basic feelings of doubt in it, probably because of the passion. It was rapidly crystallizing permeating within the audience.

Some rumor victims turn to new storytellers like those who spoke on Salah’s ideology and recalled past news in order to amplify the rumor.

In particular, victims who are journalists should not give in to their emotions at the risk of becoming the target of rumors. I was wondering what could prevent those to think out of their bubble, they would find that nobody but them is feeding a rumor that could damage their reputation.

Prior to this, in July, social media users posted an altered satellite image displaying the Antonovsky Bridge in Kherson region split in two after an attack by Ukrainian troops.

At this time, my team has checked the image that started to get viral as this was big deal then and produced on-time misleading alert to all of our colleagues in newsrooms informing them to avoid using this digitally altered image, if someone intended to.

Afterward, the first source removed the image for unknown reasons. In spite of this, I discovered journalists still using it until recently, which was interesting.

A few weeks ago, a journalist posted this image, and a fact-checker commented that it was doubtful. The publisher replied that it is an archive image. I did not know that archive image could be published even if they were manipulated.

Truth is sometimes obvious, but some spread rumours by justifying ourselves with excuse.

As far as I noticed, I see the more the people are exposed to baseless rumors, the more likely these rumors are naive and implausible – apart from their widespread -.

In fact, this inconvenient truth can be beneficial in evaluating the superficiality of individuals in terms of accepting the news truth without checking through a sound methodology.

I think that new victims were attracted to rumors by being among groups of people sharing the same or related information in closed circles when they were exposed to the content selectively.

They are often not to blame for being a part of this scene, they are under waves of misinformation in the intellectual isolation they suffer.

The fascination with this spread triggers a false feeling of evidence reliability as if the information is necessarily facts if it achieves spread.

In sum, Human brains have become predictable about what they think, that’s clearly shown in social media AI algorithms so rumors promoters do. Hence, the more these algorithms evolve to keep pace with human brains, the rumors develop in their forms and ways to deceive.