Libya faces growing information crisis

By Mohammed Kashada, Senior Analysis Editor

Libya faces a crisis beyond its fractured governance and economic challenges: a profound deterioration in societal awareness that undermines the possibility of democratic progress.

This deficit in critical information processing has created conditions where authoritarian figures operate with functional impunity despite documented abuses.

Evidence of this phenomenon emerged starkly last week when footage surfaced showing parliamentarian Ibrahim al-Darsi in captivity after his year-long disappearance.

The recording depicted the elected official in restraints, visibly distressed, appealing to Khalifa Haftar and his son for release—material consistent with reports from human rights organisations about detention practices in eastern Libya.

Officials from Haftar’s government quickly issued strong denials, claiming the video was an “artificial intelligence manipulation.” This explanation, though technically questionable, spread widely across Libya’s fragmented media landscape and social platforms.

According to our sources, the denial gained significant support despite offering no concrete evidence.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

This pattern repeated days later when an Italian military aircraft landed at Misurata Air College as part of established bilateral cooperation agreements.

Pro-Haftar media outlets rapidly characterised this routine diplomatic exchange as the arrival of “unauthorised migrants from the United States”—a narrative demonstrably false yet widely circulated through social media networks.

These events reveal a troubling trend in Libya after the conflict: information manipulation has become a refined tool for controlling the population.

As public understanding declines, advances in communication technology—which should make things more transparent—are instead twisted into channels for artificial storylines crafted to strengthen the grip of those in power.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Security specialists studying the region believe these information campaigns do more than just divert attention.

By deliberately destroying any shared understanding of facts, those in power make it practically impossible to hold anyone accountable, no matter what political system is supposedly guiding Libya’s transition.

Foreign partners trying to help stabilize Libya need to understand that lasting solutions must tackle this basic problem of distorted awareness.

Even the best-designed voting systems and government reforms can’t work properly when large segments of voters are living in completely different versions of reality.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Fixing Libya’s information landscape might be the most ignored but crucial part of getting proper government working again.

If we don’t address this, the country will keep going in circles where dreams of democracy stay forever out of reach—not because people openly reject democracy, but through something more insidious: a carefully engineered version of reality.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​