A dozen countries in Africa, including Nigeria, the biggest economy and democracy, are expected to hold their presidential elections next year, and questions linger on how well social media platforms are prepared to curb mis and dis-information.
Concerns are mounting after it was revealed that more than half of the employees were laid off and that the entire Africa team was almost cleaned out. Africa is likely to be a casualty of violence in times of political polarization because of the lack of support to stop the spread of propaganda.
It's not the first time that popular platforms have been accused of doing little to stop misinformation in Africa.
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Even as the country's economy continues to struggle, the sitting president of Nigeria has voiced concern over how dis- and mis-information on social media is fanning conflict, insecurity, and distrust in the government in the lead up to the February elections. Activists, researchers, and a section of civilians are concerned about the spread of negative campaigning as the election nears.
Hateful content and false information will continue to be shared on the internet. They want tech companies to hire and train local experts with the knowledge of local languages to intercept posts that could undermine election integrity.
Tony said that social-media platforms should step up efforts to identify and deal with election-related misinformation.
Nigeria is the most active country on social media. The increased use of social sites follows the increased use of platforms for moderation of content.
The influence of social media has grown since the election. In terms of positive political communication and ability to spread misinformation, it will play a pivotal role in the upcoming election.
Meta claims to have invested in people to stem the misuse of its platforms in Nigeria. The social media giant is following the same procedures as before and during the elections in the country. Odanga Madung is not sure if social sites are prepared enough.
Madung said that social media platforms are not ready to deal with election environments because they have had massive layoffs.
They have failed to address the key aspects that make an election environment a dangerous information environment in the first place, where things are neither true or false. Election environments are low-trust. I do not believe they will succeed on this.
Away from Nigeria, a pivotal moment is approaching for social media platforms and fragile nations such as Sudan, South Sudan, DR Congo, Libya, and Mali, which have blocked social media access in the past to quell protests against their governments.
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Mislabeling and moderation.
The role of social sites in subverting election integrity in Africa has come under scrutiny. The report claims that platforms such as Facebook profiteered from political advertising that served to amplify propaganda.
The platforms did not stop the spread of false information despite partnering with fact-checking organizations.
Facebook, the leading social media platform in Africa, failed majorly on this front by not having any visible labels during the elections, which allowed the spread of propaganda, like claims of the kidnapping and arrest of a prominent politician. The original post on Facebook claimed the kidnapping and arrest of a prominent politician.
A lawsuit was filed last week accusing Facebook of fueling violence and hate in eastern and southern Africa by failing to respond to false statements.
Abrham Meareg's father, Professor Meareg Amare, was killed during the Tigray War when Facebook posts called for violence against him, despite multiple requests from the social networking site. More than 600,000 people were killed during the two-year war that started in 2020 and one post was recently taken down, according to his son.
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Content moderation in Africa is bungled due to the lack of local knowledge, according to the case.
"Many platforms lack context and they are always going to fall short in terms of the promises they make to their users because a lie is able to move very fast across platforms before they able to get a hold of it."
An investigation by Global Witness found that the social site was not good at detecting hate speech in the main language of Ethiopia.
There is a lack of investment in content moderation for African countries. We are getting the second-rate treatment when compared to other areas. What is the result? Civil war is being caused by normal interactions such as viral posts that make fun of people and then escalate to insightful posts that my client is proof do end up causing violence in real life.
Social media is central to the permeation of political propaganda and the dilution of important investigations. There was a leak of files detailing the hidden wealth of a number of global leaders, celebrities and billionaires. The findings of the documentary were undermined by the soaring of two hashtags, #offshoreaccountfacts and #phonyleaks, which dominated the conversation on social media.
More than 75% of the countries in Africa have been affected by foreign-sponsored campaigns with political objectives.
More than 16 countries in Africa have been affected by Russian-sponsored misinformation campaigns, according to a report published in April.
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