We’re in talks with Facebook on combating fake news — INEC

THE Independent National Electoral Commission said on Friday that it was in back-channel talks with the management of Meta, owners of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, to develop mechanisms to combat fake news, especially during the forthcoming elections in the country.

INEC’s Director of Voter Education and Publicity. Victor Aluko, said this at the launch event of “Run Am”, an artificial intelligence application, designed by Rise Networks, to serve as a fake news verification app, for the 2023 elections.

It said the talks were aimed at finding ways to mitigate all those things that tend to undermine the electoral process using technology.

“Only yesterday in the office, we were having a meeting with Meta. You know, Meta is now in charge of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp; about this issue of how do we combat all these fake posts, all those things that tend to undermine the electoral process? The department, my own department, voter education and publicity, that is where we have all these issues a lot.

“There was a time when a whole press release sheet of INEC was cloned. When I read that press release myself, I thought it was true. It carried the signature of my commissioner, who normally signs releases. And he himself, looked at the signature, he said ‘This is my signature, but I didn’t release this’. And we had to issue a rebuttal immediately.

“We are going to what we call, possibly, let me just use that term, the mother of elections, a very serious election, that will be contested seriously by very powerful parties and individuals more than any time in the history of our country. And now, you will see a situation where the electoral process will be pulled in different directions, and when you have that, there will be a combination of both fake news, a lot of misinformation and a lot of disinformation.

“And we are looking at how we are going to manage our results, to make sure that people don’t misinform Nigerians. And so when we have this type of app from a reputable organization like Rise Networks, we tend to identify with them.”

Earlier, the Deputy Director, of MacArthur foundation, Mr Dayo Olajide, whose organisation supported the “Run Am” app project, said it was high time woke up and took early responsibility in naming and shaming peddlers of fake news to make them more accountable.

“Unless we begin to hold those who are managing our affairs to account, this conversation about saving democracy might just be in their wish. What we are launching today, I think, is a major contribution to that effort, but it is not enough that we only expose misinformation, it’s not enough that we expose the peddlers of misinformation. I think the critical part of the responsibility is that we begin to track those responsible and hold them to account”.

Giving an overview of how the app works, the founder of Rise Networks, Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji, explained that “Run Am” had three features: one for verifying news reports, the second for verifying images, and the last feature, for voter education.

According to her, the app, which took a total of 20 months from conceptualisation to its official launch, will soon be upgraded to include local languages and pidgin English, to ensure that ordinary Nigerians can take ownership of the app.

She added that the app will serve beyond the 2023 general elections, which provides the opportunity to “prototype this project” to other election cycles in the country.

(Vanguard)