When People Manufacture Misinformation and Bots Spread it, Fight Back With MyAIFactchecker 

By Abdulhakeem Abdulkareem

You raised your eyebrows in skepticism after reading a news headline or social media post that are too good to be true.

But at times, you are convinced about a “forwarded” WhatsApp message, thereby sharing the broadcast with people on your contact list because you care about them and you don’t want them to miss alerts/updates like ‘new communication rules for WhatsApp calls’. The virality of misleading  posts on WhatsApp can best be imagined as it is difficult to track.

Government relief funds or scholarship-themed phishing links often manipulate people to  “share to five groups or 15 friends”, also on WhatsApp. But the social networking app is just one of many platforms misinformation thrives on in Africa. A myriad of misinformation also spread on X and Facebook platforms.

Fake contents are shared by both social media users and bots. While social media users can intentionally curate deep fake (video, audio or image) to mislead people, bots cannot. A 2018 research revealed that fake news spreads faster than true news on X; thanks to people, not bots. However, bots are also a culprit as they are capable of amplifying the spread of fake news.

It is understanding why people are guilty in this case: everyone, including you, wants to keep their fams and fans up-to-date on events. But this sometimes leads to a problem: A 2018 online survey about “fake news” in sub-Saharan Africa countries of Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa revealed an alarming trend: Only a small fraction (ranging from 1 to 3%) of the 755 media consumers surveyed say they have never come across fabricated news. They encounter “fake news” about politics on a fairly regular basis, the research conducted by Democracy in Africa, shows.

In the midst of this misinformation virality, however, are a plurality of people: malicious people with access to sophisticated software, with which they churn tons of misleading  contents; and ordinary people using social media platforms as news sources.

While you take precautions on your news consumption habit as misinformation menace deepens, also arm yourself with FactaCheckAfrica’s easy-to-use handy tool to fact-check news before sharing it with others is right in your hand.

The friendly AI-fact-checker verification takes seconds to complete. Below is the step-by-step process to fact-check your news.

• Click on the MyAIFactchecker to go to the website page. The appealing AI-fact-checker will be on display on the screen of your mobile device or personal computer.

• Your fact-checking tool just wants you to prompt it to “Check Authenticity”. Once you follow the prompt, you are just a second away from verifying the authenticity and reliability of news.
• The next step is to type in the headline or claim. To make it easy, you can copy the post and then paste it in or use the audio feature to record the claim. Then, leave the process of fact-checking for MyAIFactchecker.  To make things easy, the AI fact-checker.

• Another important part is that your friendly fact-checker allows you to select languages: Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, French, Swahili and English are the options available for our African audience.

Finally, now that you have been empowered with a weapon to fight misinformation, make the best use of it to prevent you from consuming harmful contents both online and offline.

Abdulhakeem Abdulkareem is the product manager of MyAIFactchecker