By: Sandra Nnaemeka
Panelists drawn from Google, Facebook, PremiumTimes and the Guardian.ng on Monday said that news literacy and stiffer sanctions would curb fake news especially in this era of election.
The panelist aired this view on at the Social Media Week (SMWLagos2019) while discussing on ”Gate Keeping in the Era of Fake News ; The Impact of Social Media During Election”. The session was organised by The Guardian Nigeria.
According to the Head of Public Policy, West and Central Africa, Facebook, Adaora Ikenze, said the Social Media giant had on January 15, 2019 placed a ban on foreign advert for political parties as it regards Nigeria’s forthcoming elections.
Ikenze said that the ban was to eliminate foreign influence on the country’s election
Meanwhile, she said statistics shows Nigerians aren’t showing enough concerns to report purported Fake News or Content, whereas the country generates a lot of such contents.
”In the past we are aware
that there had been misuse of Facebook. Facebook
is not the Policeman of the world, we don’t allow content that is
disturbing to remain on the platform.
”Our role is to build a community to engage
with each other and it is our duty to make people feel safe on the
platform.
Ikenze however, urged Nigerians to report to Facebook
on disturbing content rather than complaining off line.
The Head,
Investigations, Premium Times, Nicholas Ibekwe, decried that disinformation
was as old as man but social media had added scale and speed to fake news.
Ibekwe said that fact checking and media
literacy can be used to check fake news.
According to him, the only way to
quickly check fake news is through
news literacy which some journalist do not understand.
He further called on social media platforms to
invest on media literacy.
On his part, the Head of Communications at Google
Africa, Mr Taiwo Ogunlade, said that Google was educating users on
flagging information that were not factual.
He said that within 24 hours any flagged content
would be investigated and owners of such
platforms sanctioned or outright removal.
The Social Media Week is a is an annual
event which commenced on Feb. 4-8
tagged Stories. (BAN)