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How The Internet Is Helping Stop Misinformation About Africa

How The Internet Is Helping Stop Misinformation About Africa

From The Guardian

What do these statements about Africa have in common? A white farmer is killed every five days in South Africa. Earlier this year Nigerian Islamists Boko Haram burnt 375 Christians alive. The Democratic Republic of Congo is the rape capital of the world. Johannesburg is the world’s biggest man-made forest. Answer: despite being widely accepted, none of them are true.

In an age when information cascades down Twitter feeds by the millisecond, it is increasingly difficult to sieve for facts, especially when it comes to much of Africa. But a trickle of newcomer websites such as BudgIT and Africa Check, are hoping to usher in the kind of non-partisan data and fact-checking services made popular by the likes of PolitiFact and others in the west.

Their daunting tasks range from tackling the sort of popular myths which once cast Africa as a land of giant birds and cannibals, to taking on officials in countries where data is often sketchy and accountability even more so.

 

Written by Monica Mark/Read more at The Guardian