Efforts to combat misinformation in the continent received further boost on Friday with the launch of the FactCheckHub – an independent, fact-checking by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (The ICIR)
The FactCheckHub, an initiative of the ICIR with the support of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), according to a statement by the Team Lead, BAMAS Victoria, is a non-partisan verification and fact-checking platform with the primary aim of combating misinformation, disinformation, hoaxes and rumours about topical issues including COVID-19, elections, health and governance, among others.
The hub is an addition to similar ones like Africa Check, Dubawa that have been promoting the need for accuracy of the information available audience on various platforms.
Executive Director of The ICIR, Dayo Aiyetan, explained that the hub was established because there’s a lot of misinformation in the world, Nigeria inclusive and recalled that the first idea about setting up a fact-check operation occurred to the organisation shortly in 2018 before Nigeria’s general election, ” because there was a lot of misinformation generated and we got involved in the process that led to the formation of CrosscheckNigeria, which brought together several newsrooms to work on fighting misinformation, particularly regarding the election.”
Aiyetan noted that the FactCheckHub isn’t “just about publishing fact-check stories” but a platform “to empower every single citizen to be able to do fact-checking.”
“The reason why misinformation spreads so much is because of the ignorance of the ordinary person who just sees something and believes it. I’m talking about ignorance, not in terms of education, as it involves even the educated, enlightened people.
“We want to engineer an environment where every single person can be a fact-checker so that if an ordinary person sees misinformation or fake news, he or she will be able to identify, decipher that this is fake news so that they don’t share it.
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“Rather than share it, they provide knowledge or information that this is not genuine. So, we want to spread this kind of thinking. We also want to use our fact-checking processes in a way that we’ll be able to reach the very ordinary Nigerians and Africans in the rural areas,” he said.
Senior Programme Officer at The ICIR in charge of the FactCheckHub, Rosemary Olufemi noted that “misinformation is a threat to democracy. It has negatively impacted elections, ignited communal clashes and deepened the challenges caused by epidemics such as the coronavirus and Ebola.”
“Moreover, the tools of social media and data have been wrongly applied to arm misinformation in Nigeria and beyond. Never in history has the role of the media been attacked by the same product and channels it uses than now.
“To provide accurate information and foster a fact-check culture among the general public spurred the intervention of the Factcheckhub project,” she added.
The project, which is supported by the IWPR, is in partnership with Africa Uncensored (AUC) in Nairobi, Kenya. The ICIR and AUC feed the Pan-Africa fact-checking website, www.FakeWatch.africa, which serves as a clearinghouse for information about fake news across the continent.
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