Launching Viral Facts Africa!
Today marks the launch of Viral Facts Africa — a groundbreaking new collaboration to address viral health misinformation on the African continent.
Working with the WHO Regional Office For Africa and Africa’s fact checking organisations, Fathm has built a regional collaboration dedicated to creating engaging and shareable fact checks, debunks and explainers to tackle misinformation and address identified information gaps.
Viral Facts Africa builds on Fathm founders’ previous experience designing and leading fact checking collaborations in important ways:
We’re producing content using entirely new formats designed for social sharing and consumption on mobile phones, and optimised for trust. We’re putting years of misinformation research and experience into best practice, translating fact checks and complex health messaging into easily accessible and shareable short videos and graphics cards — and doing this in multiple languages and at scale.
Working with leading regional public health institutions allows us to ensure that Viral Facts Africa content has technical input and clearance from leading health experts at WHO, Africa CDC, UNICEF, and IFRC. The collaboration helps fact checking partners quickly access this expertise for their work investigating viral health misinformation and get quick, authoritative response from experts.
