In Ghana, five days after the announcement of John Dramani Mahama’s victory in the presidential election, the end of the country’s coalition of fact-checkers: this alliance bringing together more than fifty news checkers was formed ahead of the general elections on December 7 to fight against fake news which is increasingly overwhelming major political events around the world. Meeting with one of the founders of this initiative.
2 mins
With our correspondent in Accra, Victor Cariou
In one week, journalist Kwaku Krobea Asante and his colleagues had to verify more than a hundred false content published on the Snapchat, X, and especially Tik Tok networks. “ The most recurring themes were related to political partieshe explains. Disinformation sometimes created by the parties themselves, and other times aimed at these political parties “.
New for this election, the Fact-Check teams GhanaDubawa and Ghana Fact – the three media in this coalition – had to deal with content generated by artificial intelligence reproducing, in particular, the voices of the main candidates. “ In the case of Mahamudu Bawumia and John Dramani Mahama, who were both victims, we put a clear extract from one of their interviews into software, and the artificial voicedetails Kwaku Krobea Asante. The software analyzes them and can tell us if the sound is not human “.
The collective will come together at each major political event
If, as Kwaku Krobea Asante asserts, false news always circulates faster than its denials, the journalist nevertheless welcomes the significant audience for their verifications, sometimes even trending on social networks: “ We’ve received lots of messages from people saying they’ve used our content to inform the public, and even win debates! »
Building on its success, the collective has now decided to come together at each major political event.
The opposition party candidate in Ghana John Mahama won the presidential election with 56% votes against the candidate of the ruling party and vice-president of the country Mahamudu Bawumia (41%), the Electoral Commission announced on December 9. John Mahama, 66, who was president of the country from 2012 to 2017 and twice failed to return to power, promised to revive the economy and implement anti-corruption reforms.
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