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The strange passion of certain Moroccan and Arab media for bogus polls published by American platform Numbeo continues. Yesterday, several of them relayed two «rankings» conducted by the platform, while in reality they were reflecting the opinions of around a hundred people in the case of Morocco.
Indeed, Hespress reported in an article that «Morocco has all the factors of stability», citing the «findings of the Numbeo global poll on crime and security». While ensuring that «Morocco is one of the safest countries at the level of several European states», the Arabic-speaking media focuses on the rankings of Casablanca and Rabat and the scores attributed by Numbeo to the two Moroccan cities.
«This international ranking is based on precise criteria which measure the extent of the feeling of security of citizens and tourists, the percentage of security in walking alone in the street, by day and by night, car thefts and home burglaries as well as violent crimes», the media claimed.
Media in Morocco but also in Qatar
An hour later, other media jumped on the bandwagon, like Almaghrib Today which assured that «Morocco is compared to European countries in terms of security and safety». «Crime goes from 35.8 points for Rabat to 60.09 in Casablanca», the media explained.
Still, others preferred to relay Numbeo's ranking on the crime index, like Barlamane. The online newspaper claimed that the Kingdom «ranks 45th in the world out of 133 countries in the annual ranking of the crime rate for the first half of 2020». Morocco «ranks 15th in Africa», scoring «48.97 points for the extent of crime and 51.03 points for safety», the online media added.
«The Numbeo platform is one of the largest and most famous Internet databases in the world, which is interested in the evaluation of the crime rate and the degree of safety in the world», Barlamane concluded.
Moroccan media are not the only ones damaging their credibility by relaying Numbeo's rankings. Indeed, according to Turkish agency Anadolu, the Qatari Ministry of Interior also published, Sunday, July 12, a tweet in which it praised the American platform, which ranks Qatar as the safest country with less crime for the first half of 2020. According to Anadolu, the same information was quoted by the Qatari press agency (QNA).
A ranking based on perception and without any methodology
In reality, all of Numbeo's rankings for the case of Morocco emanate from the opinions expressed by 387 Internet users. Moreover, in the case of Casablanca and Rabat, the media omit to mention that this was the perception expressed, respectively, by 177 and 38 voters.
Numbeo's rankings are regularly pinpointed for their approximations and their information that do not go hand in hand with real facts or findings from international organizations and recognized institutions. Indeed, and unlike the American platform, the Global Peace Index 2020 by the Institute for the Economy and Peace ranks Morocco 83rd worldwide. The same report also puts Iceland in the first place worldwide, not Qatar.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time that Moroccan media relay, without any checks, the opinions of a few hundred Internet users on Numbeo. In 2016, the latter was even called a «renowned American center, specializing in the study of living standards, security, pollution and the environment» by a Moroccan daily which relayed information claiming that Casablanca was the «fifth most polluted city in the world».
After the Casablanca hoax came a Global Crime Index, evaluating security and crime in countries around the world and in particular in Morocco, a third on drinking water, a fourth on international crime, and a recent ranking over healthcare, all emanating from the same platform and taken seriously by several media outlets.
The healthcare ranking had even resulted in a reaction by the Ministry of Health, which refuted its content, affirming in a press release relayed by MAP that the conclusions of the publishing platform «lack rigor, credibility and scientific methodology».
