Jamie Angus of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka were among critical stakeholders who raised passionate calls on Wednesday on the need to check the ravaging impact of fake news in Nigeria going into
elections in the next month.
The calls were made at the BBC organized event on fake news which had the theme: Nigeria 2019: Countering Fake News, following the obvious dangers posed by the rising rate of fake information in the country, particularly as election draws closer.
Jamie Angus who is the Director, BBC World Service Group told BusinessDay that the situation was worrisome and that the Corporation has committed to initiating conversations, but would allow the country’s stakeholders to tackle the menace before things get out of hand.
“I think we know it’s a problem which is not only causing confusion and the lack of trust between audiences and publishers but it’s actually causing a threat in terms of even people’s well-being because we have seen examples with vigilantes, we have seen disinformation
leading to violence in different parts of Nigeria, so we know it’s not just media talking point, it’s a real present threat to people’s security, lives and property.
“So people need to understand that, and that is why we need to take the problem seriously,” he told BusinessDay.
He said the BBC was particularly concerned because Nigeria is its biggest single country audience to them.
“We really care about Nigeria, and as a country we have got a long history of working closely with and we care about the National Nigeria’s immediate climax.
“But I think more widely, the BBC wants to be the solution to the entire media community in Nigeria. “What we are looking for is to mobilize resources, start the conversation, be part of the solution but let the country find its own national self-solutions.”
As part of its solution, he said the BBC would be publishing high quality, independent and verified fact checking content into the Nigerian elections and “specifically around the elections, we will publish this fact checks stories, we will publish a different sort of key explainer everyday.
“During this the period of the campaign, we will be hosting the governors’ debates in different provinces, so we will have a report on ground in every single Nigerian state, so that is our commitment to ensure on the ground reporting, informed accurate reporting.
“But I think more widely, the BBC wants to be the solution to the entire media community in Nigeria because we recognize that some of the special skills around verifying video, checking for fake news is not what every media house can do with themselves, so the BBC wants to
help share we have learned so that overall, the immediate climate in Nigeria improves.
Angus, who had earlier participated in the panel discussions suggested sharing of fact-checked news items by conglomerate of media outlets which would assist in validating their news items.
“Collective strength of media outfits in validating information
through proper fact-check of trending news items is key in curbing
this menace as well as media education,” he said.
At the event, Vice President Osinbajo and Soyinka as well as other
panelists called on the traditional media to set the standards in news
delivery through thorough interrogation and fact-checking of news
items.
“Aside from the damage and the integrity harm done to public
information, the capacity of fake news to cause alarm and fear and
even future violence had been demonstrated again and again,” Osinbajo
said.
He said the wider harm is that if the menace was not checked, people
would soon stop believing even the credible public information.
The Vice President who expressed further concern on the harm done to
public information on the back of wide spread of fake news pointed
out that advancement in technology could spike up simulations and
manipulation on speeches by newsmakers which never happened.
“I think that a time would come if nothing is done, nothing would be
believed or would be believable, because as technology improves in its
capacity to manipulate, and it’s capacity to resemble. After a while,
there would be perfect videos of people speaking or making a speech
that they never made or events that never happen, and it would be more
difficult to distinguish between what is true and what is not true,”
the Vice President said.
Osinbajo who narrated his own experience as a victim of fake news
raised three important issues, one of which is whether the country
should be looking at some kind of agreement and conventions with other
countries to help tackle the problem.
Speaking further on how advancement in technology and widened
dimension of news content had uplifted the believability in ‘Fake
news’ advancement, the Vice President called on the traditional news
outfits to dig deeper in investigation, interrogation of issues and
fact-checking of any trending news items.
Soyinka who featured as panelist at the event recommended that the
peddlers of fake news are “sick in the head and cowards and should be
treated as criminals.
He advised Nigerians not to underestimate the negative impact of fake
news purveyors as many of them are up for hire.
According to the Nobel laureate, “I had done a lot of research to
protect myself from this vendors of fake news, and I discovered some
amazing ways in which those who ran some of these pages are offering
themselves up for hire.
“They even have a system by which fake news could be multiplied within
micro-seconds, because they have networks, teams, for simultaneous
spread of the news items”
He pointed out that the fake news vendors who play a mercenary
purpose for hire, obviously for politicians, and also use those
created pages for their own private business.
Soyinka particularly raised the concerns that fake news, especially in
an election period has the capacity of creating huge chaos and that
the menace must be tackled as quickly as possible.
“Fake news is a very serious issue we are dealing with right now,” the Professor stated.
Citing examples where fake stories had been created and attributed to him, as well as social media sites created in his name and official logo to extort and defraud unsuspecting public, Soyinka said technology has catapulted the fake news phenomenon and that technology
should also be used to counter it.
Uche Pedro, founder of Bella Naija, who participated in the panel also called for collaboration on news check of news items by media managers.
Funke Egbemode, President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors and Editor-in -Chief of New Telegraph Newspaper, called on law enforcement agencies to swing into action with the already established laws such as the libel laws, and Identity theft laws in prosecuting purveyors of
fake news in the country.
Onyinye Nwachukwu & Harrison Edeh, Abuja
