The way governmental websites are dealing with rumors under open data initiatives

The increased use of social networks led to the emergence of a state of information defect, which in turn affected the spread of rumors and false news within the Egyptian government, and then that situation affected the stability of the Egyptian government and citizens' confidence in its institutions, so the government, through its institutions, seeks to confront those rumors by providing information. The availability of government data on the Internet under an open license allows anyone to use, reuse, and redistribute it without legal or technical restrictions.
Therefore, the research seeks to provide a clear analysis of the rumors that the Egyptian governement faced during the period under study, classifying and analyzing them to identify the most relevant government institutions, and then analyzing the websites of those institutions to determine the extent of their commitment to providing data and information about them in a systematic manner, in an attempt to confront rumors and address them. The study also monitors the extent to which these institutions employ open government data initiatives as a mechanism to counter rumors.
The study concluded that:
1- The Egyptian government was exposed to 157 rumors within four months, related to issues and topics affecting the daily life of the Egyptian citizen.
2- In spreading rumors on social media, it relied on methods of intimidation, exploitation of emotion, the method of ridicule, the method of provocation, and finally the method of suspense.
3- Rumors in that period were associated with the ministries of health and population, agriculture and land reclamation, finance, and education.
4- The study concluded that the Egyptian government portals lack the use of open source software to provide access to open data, despite its announcement of its adoption of open data initiatives, but it did not try to employ the policies of those initiatives through its official websites, to limit the spread of rumors and false news.