Many who are active on social media will remember earlier this week a Facebook post which was shared to a popular group on the social media platform on Sunday.

The post suggested that the hospital’s management had removed “all crucifixes from all wards and rooms” in an effort to be more tolerant to other religions.

The post, which was shared by what appears to be a fake profile, included a picture of a blank wall with nothing but an electricity socket – which doesn’t appear to be local – and a red circle indicating a small hole, seemingly to indicate that a crucifix had been hung there.

Such was the backlash from people who believed that the post was true, that Mater Dei’s administration issued its own statement on social media denying that crucifixes had been removed from the hospital walls.

The backlash was indeed immense: the original post garnered reactions spanning into the thousands and comments into the hundreds, all lambasting the account which made the post – an account whose name was clearly made out to be of Muslim descent – for having the gall to praise the removal of the crucifixes.

Further digging shows that the account which made the post is most likely fake: it was a page (not a profile) with no pictures of whoever the account purported to represent and with a history of sharing spam.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people do not have the media literacy to recognise when a post is being made by a fake profile – or even to recognise when the contents of the post itself are fake.

It is important to understand and recognise when such fake accounts are peddling this misinformation. 

One person wrote a post later saying that the post was clearly done in order to test the waters for progressive reforms such as the removal of the crucifixes, but there is also the possibility that whoever is behind the fake account knew full well what type of backlash would be received, and possibly wanted to further drive a wedge against foreigners in a time when there is already a lot of discourse surrounding over-population.

In today’s age where social media has a worryingly large hold on the public discourse, media literacy is more important than ever. Where those with nefarious intentions will not find a way in with the media, they now have an easy outlet to reach the masses and stoke outrage with misinformation. We need only look at the recent situation in the UK, where far-right agents peddled mis-information about a 17-year-old boy who stabbed three children to death during a dance class in Southport. 

The far-right said that the boy was a Muslim asylum-seeker who had arrived in the UK by boat.  The facts say that the boy was British-born to parents from Rwanda – with Rwanda being a country where only 2% of the population is Muslim (in Malta, for context, 4% of the population are Muslims).

But the damage was done: the far-right bought the narrative, took the bait and carried out violent protests in Southport.

God forbid misinformation ever leads to a similar situation in Malta, but without the right education, that risk remains present.