Nigeria’s first vertical portal, MyNigeria.com has partnered with FactSpace West Africa, an independent, non-partisan fact-checking organization working to tackle mis/disinformation and propaganda across the region ahead of the country’s general elections.
The partnership will see both platforms live-fact-check viral claims circulating online either as text, images and videos about the election that has the potential to undermine the integrity of the election.
The volatile, unpredictable nature of Nigeria’s electoral process and the need to sanitize traditional and social media of misinformation that creates a negative perception were central to the collaboration.
Teams of fact-checkers in other West African countries including Ghana, The Gambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone would also be monitoring social media to identify viral claims and suspicious narratives relating to the Nigerian elections and collaboratively publish fact-checks/factsheets2023
To ensure the general public both at home and abroad is involved in this exercise, MyNigeria and FactSpace West Africa would deploy a crowdsourcing strategy that allows the public to alert the team of fact-checkers of suspicious claims via their social media handles.
Tips or claims will be directed to TheMynigeria on Instagram and Twitter and Facebook on MyNigeria. The live fact-checking will take place on MyNigeria.com and Factspace.org.
