The popularity of Instagram page Cestmocro also has a dark side

When researchers from the University of Amsterdam (UvA) interviewed teenagers about their use of news on social media, one name stood out. “When asked if they followed news and how, Cestmocro mentioned remarkably often,” says Amber van der Wal, postdoctoral researcher.

Cestmocro (with the French C’est) also mentioned singer S10 (22), who represented the Netherlands in the last Eurovision Song Contest, when it appeared on television This Was The News was about where she gets her news. “I think everyone should follow that. It is quite for young people, you get a lot of important news. (…) So also what is going on with the farmers or in Iran.”

The S10 clip proudly adorns the top of Instagram’s page Cestmocrowhich has more than 933,000 followers in traditional media such as RTL News (532,000) or NRC (105,000) comfortably on the platform. “Without cestmocro even if the world ends I wouldn’t know,” is one of the most liked comments below.

Fabrication

Cestmocro publishes about five posts a day with news in a style reminiscent of tabloid newspapers, with lots of images and headlines in bold block letters. The text section summarizes the news in a few paragraphs. Topics vary from the results of the Provincial Council elections to more superficial news: so placed the page a story from tabloid newspaper The Mirror about the marriage between a 19-year-old boy and a 76-year-old woman – which later turned out to be a fabrication. Recurring themes are (world) politics, disasters, gender, Islam, influencers, and football.

It is unclear who is behind the channel that started at the end of 2017 – Cestmocro did not want to answer questions for this article. It started as a page of a young Moroccan Dutchman, with memes, jokes, videos and sayings, mainly from social media. The page gradually started sharing more and more news, which became the main part in the past year.

Cestmocro mainly bases itself on traditional news media such as NOS and RTL News. “In an era when many young people are susceptible to fake news and no longer see what is real, I find it very positive that Cestmocro usually bases itself on reliable sources, including source references,” says editor-in-chief Sheily Belhaj of NOS Stories, which also publishes news for young people on Instagram. It is just the largest there with 985,000 followers – but Cestmocro is growing faster.

Cestmocro often brings news faster than channels like Stories. Also because, in addition to news verified by regular media, it also posts messages that circulate on social media or in tabloids. “At Stories we are more bound by journalistic rules: checking whether something is correct, asking for rebuttal. And for sensitive subjects, we look for an expert who can explain it well. It takes time.”

Misinformation

At Cestmocro, this is sometimes at the expense of the facts. In March post Cestmocro about relational and sexual education lessons from knowledge center Rutgers for the annual Week of Spring Fever at primary schools, where many fuss over is. The post is based on a article van Hart van Nederland in which a mother suggests that children in group 1 learn about masturbation. That was wrong.

In his summary of the piece, Cestmocro omits the nuances and also adds a number of images, such as a photo of a teacher showing pictures of vulvas. It concerns a secondary school teacher, who has nothing to do with the Spring fever week. It also adds screenshots of posts from other Instagram users claiming, among other things, that children between the ages of 4 and 6 learn about anal sex. That is also incorrect. Furthermore, according to the screenshots, Rutgers is engaged in ‘pedo activities’.

“This is just pedophilia” is one of the most liked reactions with 2,800 hearts. More extreme comments speak of beheading Rutgers employees. Well-known Dutch people and influencers also respond. “Cuckoo”, says model Kim Feenstra. “Insane,” responds MocroMaffia actor Walid Benmbarek. Political parties Denk and FVD mix, as they often do on Cestmocro. “We are not going to teach toddlers in primary school that they have to touch their genitals!” says Denk (more than a thousand likes). Rutgers requests that the photo be removed, but the question evaporates between the three thousand responses. After insisting via a private message, Cestmocro still removes the photo. “That’s neat, many other channels have not done that,” said a Rutgers spokesperson. The organization dropped protest against the misleading texts. “There was so much misinformation going around that week that we had to make choices. Now that we have seen how much influence Cestmocro can have, we probably would have done it differently in hindsight.”

If Cestmocro makes mistakes, it’s sometimes because the ‘traditional’ media on which it relies don’t get it right either. Like with a post about the Dalai Lama: he would have let a boy suck his tongue. Although the spiritual leader did indeed make that bizarre request, the boy did not respond – but that is how the media, including the NOS, put it.

Not unique

35 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds stay up to date with the news through Instagram, according to research from 2022. Dozens of interviews conducted by UvA researcher Van der Wal with 14 to 17-year-olds showed that ‘up-to-date information’ is one of the main reasons they use Instagram. “In one of the groups it was about their parents grumbling that they do not read the newspaper, but that they see it on Instagram and then know much sooner than their parents.”

Cestmocro earns money from advertising. Within this revenue model, the income depends on the reach – reach that grows on Instagram with reactions, likes and shares.

And gender and sexuality evoke a lot of reaction, also sees Sheily Belhaj at NOS Stories: “In our place one of the most controversial subjects is transgender people, then non-binary people, then homosexuality and then feminism.” Only then do topics such as racism follow, according to Belhaj. Cestmocro seems to be responding to this by giving ample attention to news about these subjects. Where NOS Stories removes hate and misinformation from the comments, Cestmocro does not seem to be moderated. Organizations feel called upon to intervene. Like human rights organization Amnesty on a message about homosexuality in Uganda: “Dear LGBTQIA+ people in the comments: don’t be discouraged by the reactions. You are not alone.”

reassurance

The reactions to Cestmocro are not only gloomy. There is also discussion in a normal tone. Humor also plays a major role. Like when the account posts about a newly discovered black hole, with an audio clip of what such a black hole sounds like – a kind of grunting sound. “Slide 2 is everyone’s belly during Ramadan”.

But if the subject is more sensitive, it will get out of hand, something that the followers also talk about with each other. As at the beginning of April in a response an attack on LGBT+ youth applauded someone responds: “Comment section is always so crazy here. Cestmocro is of course doing well again on the engagement”. Another says: “Cestmocro started as a voice for young people with a migrant background but has grown into a polarizing one [sic] hub of misleading titles, fake news and homo/transphobia, a real waste of the potential it had (…)”. Yet another keeps it shorter: “Total morons in the comments”.

The reactions to Cestmocro reflect a counter-reaction to “movements that have grown in recent years that are labeled as woke, as a collective name for all kinds of groups of people who are emancipating,” says Nugah Shrestha of Instagram page Political Youth (146,000 followers). His page focuses on the same target group as Cestmocro, but with a progressive approach. Shrestha does not necessarily think that the reactions to Cestmocro show that an extra conservative wind is blowing among young people. “The Netherlands is quite a conservative country. Every day you read a condemnation of ‘woke’ in the major newspapers. Young people are on average slightly more progressive, at the same time FVD, VVD and SGP would get relatively many seats if only young people voted.”

At Cestmocro, Sheily Belhaj sees young people with an Islamic background “merging” with indigenous conservative Dutch people. Groups that used to be against each other. “Now both can agree with being anti-‘woke’ and -LGBT+. You also see that FVD relative popular is among young Muslims.”

According to researcher Amber van der Wal, the reactions to Cestmocro are not representative of Dutch young people, certainly not where they go too far in hatred or homophobia. “Some of the young people think that way, but my impression is that a silent majority does not support it. Some of our interviewees said: I don’t respond if I don’t agree, because then I’ll get that dredger all over me too.

Most of her interviewees also followed other news pages, such as NOS Stories. According to Van der Wal, teenagers do realize that Cestmocro, despite the fact that it often bases itself on reliable media, does not apply the same journalistic standards. “One of them said, ‘It’s not normal how fast these kinds of accounts are, they’re earlier than the real news.’ To which another said: ‘At the NOS they have to make an entire broadcast and it is illegal if you spread fake news.’ I found that apt. They really understand the differences.”