Social media takes fight against fake news notch higher

Fake news. FILE PHOTO | NMG  

By PAULINE KAIRU
More by this Author

Social media can easily be summed up as one of the greatest innovations of the century. It has
affected lives and organisations immensely, and in many positive ways. But on the flipside it has in various instances become a cesspool of the propagation of untruths that have led to untold mass hysteria, agony, human suffering, financial loss and even death.

The internet opened up new easier ways of harming others and perpetrating all manner of vices. Apparently, anonymity plays a role in breeding negative online interactions, from cyber harassment to identify theft, to fake news.

Manufacturing of falsehoods disguised as news material has become a core part of media consumption, especially as more and more people look to social media for news and information.

While the Communications Authority of Kenya and the National Cohesion and Integration Commission have co-authored rules to help combat the distribution of such information with a Sh1 million fine or five-year jail term for offenders, global social media companies are joining in the process to stem circulation of fake news on their sites.

A study by Portland and GeoPoll in 2017 about Kenya’s consumption of news found that at least half of those in the study relied on social media for their news. In relation to the upcoming polls, it revealed that 90 per cent of Kenyans had heard or seen false stories related to the elections. In the survey, a cross section of the population including official groups, friends, and families told researchers they had all used social media to spread the misinformation. Government agencies have themselves been exposed for sharing fake news as it has popularly come to be known.

Unlike real-life harassment, the cloak of facelessness and obscurity that digital media provides offenders as well as the swiftness with which gossip, rumours and photos or other information, whether true or made up, can be spread, with the intention of humiliating, hurting or defaming a target, makes the internet a monster that needs taming for those who have been victims.

Social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, Youtube, Snapchat have in recent times all come under increasing pressure to stop the spread of false information.

And the pressure is bearing fruit with giants Facebook, Google and Twitter recently announcing they were entering into collaboration with third-party fact-checking organisations like Africa-check to identify stories that fail to hold up to scrutiny, and warn users when they try to post or share these stories.

In Kenya, tech firms Google and Facebook announced they were investing millions to combat cyber bullying like targeted rumours, threats and making sexual remarks that target children and youth.

Just last week, Google committed Sh100 million to firms that promote safe internet use by focusing on internet privacy, trust and safety across Africa.

Google made the commitment to enhance cyber security during the launch of an internet-based literacy website for children dubbed Be Internet Awesome. Google Kenya’s local partners include the Ministry of Education, Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development, Ministry of Youth and ICT, Youth Technology Foundation, Kabarak University, Pawa IT, Communications Authority and Kenya Scouts Association.

“We can't do it alone. We know that the best answers often come from those closest to the problem - from civil society organisations and nonprofit innovators who understand the needs of vulnerable populations in their own communities,” said Google Kenya Country Director, Charles Murito.

“That's why we are launching a pan-African $1 million fund to support innovative project ideas by nonprofits and social enterprises around digital literacy and online safety of children, young people and families.”

Google which has more than 250 million users across the globe has to date partnered with 15 local government agencies and non-profit organisations to scale up internet safety and security awareness amongst children and youth in the country.

Facebook on the other hand recently announced its partnership with nine organisations across Africa including Kenya’s Watoto Watch to ensure that its social media platforms are safe for use by children.

“We're committed to ensuring Facebook and Instagram are safe places for everyone, especially the youth,” said Strategic Media Partnerships Manager for Facebook in sub-Saharan Africa, Jocelyne Muhutu-Rémy.

“That’s why we offer a range of tools on our platforms to give people full control over their experience, and work with our partners to drive awareness about the practices, resources and tools people can use to protect their online wellbeing.”

Last year, Facebook Inc and the news agency Reuters, announced that they had reached an agreement to fact-check content posted on Facebook and its photo-sharing app Instagram. The US pilot project is meant to detect misinformation faster.

The two firms explained that a newly created unit at Reuters will fact-check user-generated photos, videos, headlines and other content for Facebook’s US audience. This is being done for both English and Spanish language posts.

The partnership brings to eight the number of fact-checking partners in the United States, most of which are media-related outlets. It has widely been alleged that misinformation and disinformation on social media played a dominant role in Kenya’s chaotic 2017 elections.

Facebook, in particular has come under severe pressure for driving fake news on its platform ahead of the key presidential elections. But Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg has been on record saying that it was not up to social media sites like his to determine what amounts to abuse of social media. He called for more regulation of harmful online content by authorities.

Facebook, which has 2.45 billion monthly active users around the world, has recently come under intense criticism as US intelligence agencies accused it of being at the heart of a Russian cyber-influence campaign aimed at interfering in the 2016 US election – a claim Moscow has denied.

The same claims were made in Kenya’s own presidential elections in which Cambridge Analytica, the same data analysis firm accused around the world of using data gathered from Facebook users to spread fake news, psychological manipulation and entrapment techniques through social media to influence especially young voters. It was the same group used in the 2016 US presidential election and the Brexit referendum.

According to a report by Nigerian e-commerce platform Jumia released in 2017, 67 percent of Kenyans were internet users. And the country has approximately 7 million Facebook users.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on February 15 Mr Zuckerberg urged governments to formulate new regulatory systems for social media, suggesting it should be a mix of existing rules for telecoms and media companies. Mr Zuckerberg also admitted Facebook had been slow to recognise the development of co-ordinated online "information campaigns" by state actors looking to spread propaganda.

He added that malevolent actors are also becoming better at covering their tracks by masking the IP addresses of users.

"In the absence of that kind of regulation we will continue doing our best," he said at the conference according to the BBC.

Since the last two years, the company has launched new policies for political advertising globally, requiring political ads to display who paid for them, and consequently keeping a copy of the ad in a publicly-searchable database for seven years.

Facebook has also said it will not include sponsored political posts by social media stars in its database. The BBC reported that posts by politicians are not always fact-checked as part of the company's free speech policy. To tackle this, Mr Zuckerberg said Facebook had a team of 35,000 people reviewing content and security on the platform. With assistance from AI, he said more than a million fake accounts are deleted every day.

"Our budget (for content review) is bigger today than the whole revenue of the company when we went public in 2012, when we had a billion users," he said.

Twitter has also opened warfare against the spread of falsehoods with new guidelines for Twitter users to be able to flag and counter fake information. Last year, it announced plans seek input from around the globe on how it will address synthetic and manipulated media.

It has hence announced a set of rules that will guide use of the platform and said that starting March 5 2020, it would begin to apply a label, remove information, pictures, audio and videos it finds to have been doctored for the sake of misinforming audiences.

The micro-blogging site has also moved to ban accounts known for persistently spreading conspiracy theories.

Twitter said in a statement published on its blog by Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth and Group Product Manager, Ashita Achuthan that the company would henceforth, “Show a warning to people before they Retweet or like the Tweet (considered to carry false information), reduce the visibility of the Tweet on Twitter and/or prevent it from being recommended, provide additional explanations or clarifications, as available, such as a landing page with more context.”