# BOUTEF: A Multilingual Corpus for FakeNews in North Africa -- Language as a Weapon

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.00193 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.00193/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 10 of its 62 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 May 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [GPT-4 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.08774/) (2023)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [RoBERTa: A Robustly Optimized BERT Pretraining Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.11692/) (2019)
- [FEVER: a large-scale dataset for Fact Extraction and VERification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.05355/) (2018)
- ["Liar, Liar Pants on Fire": A New Benchmark Dataset for Fake News Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.00648/) (2017)
- [MuMiN: A Large-Scale Multilingual Multimodal Fact-Checked Misinformation Social Network Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.11684/) (2022)
- [MM-COVID: A Multilingual and Multimodal Data Repository for Combating COVID-19 Disinformation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.04088/) (2020)
- [A Survey on Echo Chambers on Social Media: Description, Detection and Mitigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.05084/) (2021)
- [A Benchmark Study of Machine Learning Models for Online Fake News Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.04749/) (2019)
- [Fake or Real? A Study of Arabic Satirical Fake News](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.00452/) (2020)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The rapid spread of fake news on social media has become a major challenge, particularly in multilingual and under-resourced contexts such as North Africa. In this paper, we introduce BOUTEF, a large-scale multilingual corpus designed to study the propagation, characteristics, and impact of fake news in Algeria and Tunisia. The corpus integrates three complementary components: fake narratives, genuine narratives, and associated user-generated comments, along with verified debunking information. It covers a wide range of languages and linguistic varieties, including MSA, Algerian and Tunisian dialects, Arabizi, French, English, and code-switched language. Building on this resource, we conduct a comprehensive empirical analysis combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. We examine thematic distributions, linguistic and rhetorical strategies, sentiment patterns, and social engagement dynamics. Statistical analyses reveal significant associations between thematic categories and message veracity, as well as strong correlations between user engagement and the visibility of fake content. Our findings show that fake news relies heavily on emotionally charged narratives, sensational framing, and hybrid linguistic practices that enhance virality and audience engagement. In contrast, debunking content adopts a more factual and verification-oriented style. Furthermore, a comparative analysis between Algeria and Tunisia highlights both shared dynamics and country-specific characteristics shaped by sociopolitical contexts. The results emphasize the role of informal language practices in the diffusion and reception of misinformation. By providing a rich, annotated, and publicly available dataset, this work contributes to advancing research on fake news detection, low-resource language processing, and the understanding of information disorders in complex linguistic environments.