Media Excellence Awards confab opens, deliberates on curbing fake news

The West Africa Media Excellence Conference and Awards (WAMECA) opened in Accra yesterday, with a call on stakeholders to take action to tackle the spread of fake news and abuse of social media ahead of the 2020 general election in Ghana.

Speakers observed that the use of social media to spread fake news and hate speeches was a major threat to peaceful and successful elections, for which reason key actors in the country must collaborate to deal with the scourge.

They said the security agencies and state regulators, including election management bodies, the media, political parties and other stakeholders, must all play active roles in putting systems in place to prevent the spread of fake news.

Additionally, the conference called on editors and media organisations in particular to adhere strictly to ethical standards to prevent the use of their channels to propagate fake news.

WAMECA

The WAMECA is an initiative by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) to promote media excellence in the sub-region by building the capacity of journalists and rewarding those whose work impacts society.

This year’s event is the third in the series and is being held on the theme: “Social media, fake news and elections in Africa”.

The three-day event is being attended by key media personalities, including managers of electoral bodies in Africa, the security agencies, members of the Diplomatic Corps and civil society organisations (CSOs).

Diligence

The Chairperson of the Information Regulator of South Africa, Advocate Pansy Tlakula, called for greater collaboration among major players to make social media a useful tool for deepening democratic elections, instead of using it to destroy.

She added that the arbitrary shutdown of the Internet during elections in some countries was not a good practice for democratic governance.

Advocate Tlakula, who is also the immediate past Chairperson of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, therefore, urged the participants to explore ways of leveraging the use of social media and technology to disseminate credible information during elections.

She also asked election management bodies in Africa to put in place robust data protection systems to ensure that politicians did not get access to people’s personal data.

“The voter’s roll contain a lot of information about people and once you are in possession of voters’ identification numbers, you are in possession of their lives and you need to protect their privacy,” she added.

Fake news

The Chairman of the MFWA Board and Executive Director of Media Rights Agenda, Nigeria, Mr Edetaen Ojo, said it was unfortunate that social media had become a channel for propagating fake news.

He partly blamed the practice on politicians, who used the media to fuel fake news and hate speeches.

Mr Ojo advised journalists to adhere to the ethics of their profession and avoid being used as vessels for churning out fake news.

The Public Policy Manager in charge of Africa and elections at Facebook, Ms Akua K. Gyekye, said the social media outfit would not allow its platform to be used to promote hate speeches to disturb any electoral process.

In that regard, she said, Facebook was collaborating with state and non-state actors to check the abuse of the platform.

No social media shutdown

For his part, a Deputy Minister of Communications, Mr George Andah, said the government had no intention to shut down any social media channel during the 2020 general election.

“There is news making the rounds that the government intends to shut down some social media channels during the 2020 elections, but I want to state categorically that we do not have the capacity or capability to shut down any social media channel,” he said.

“There is a broadcasting bill in the offing that puts the burden and responsibility of ensuring that fake news and hate speeches do not exist on the broadcaster; so, broadcasters need to ensure that their platforms are not used by any politician or person to fuel hate speeches,” he added.