How can technology help in the fight against fake news?
Given its role in the spread of fake news, can we turn technology into a tool to fight this phenomenon?
The challenge of separating truth from fiction in online spaces has always been difficult, but in the run-up to the 2017 Kenyan general election there has been a lot more online ‘noise’ than usual. From misrepresentations to out an out lies, deceptive stories that subtly promote political agendas find their way into social media newsfeeds, and get repeated without question by even mainstream sites. As recent history has shown, emotions run high at election time here, and tensions can be turned to violence by those who seek to undermine democracy with lies.
Kenya is not alone, of course, and neither is “fake news” a new phenomenon. In previous eras we called it names like ‘propaganda’ and ‘yellow journalism’. But those who spread misinformation in order to further a particular ideology have become more sophisticated and convincing. Like soccer players shouting for the ref, the cry of “fake news” has been ringing out from left to right across the political spectrum, and in the north, south, east and west around the globe.
“Fake news” has become so familiar a term that it was made “word of the year” by the Oxford Dictionary in 2016, and accusing someone of peddling fake news has become as effective way of discrediting truth tellers as it has shutting out the lies.
Which is why the July meet-up for Hacks/Hackers Nairobi saw an audience of 40 gathered in the Nairobi Garage space to discuss how ordinary citizens, journalists, civic technologists and the digital media community can use new and existing technologies to fight fake news. The session, called Digital Democracy: Using Tech To Fight Fake News, was opened by Code for Kenya lead Catherine Gicheru, who explained that the discussion would revolve around how fake news was being used in the context of the Kenyan elections, and how technology can and has been used to fight it.
Allan Kamau from Portland Communications, opened the session with discussion of a survey his company has produced called ‘The reality of Fake News in Kenya’.
The report looks at where Kenyans get their news from, and how much trust they have in mainstream media and social media, and as it turns out, traditional media — TV, newspapers and radio — remains the most trusted source of information, but Kenyans are consuming an increasing amount of news on social media, some of which contains fake information.
You can read it below.
According to the Portland report, nine out of ten respondents said that they had seen some form of fake news related to elections. The internet, Kamau explained, is designed to spread information. Anyone can publish what they want, so it’s hard to find the truth. He further added that the fact that this information is usually shared by people they trust — usually friends and family — makes it more likely that they will believe something even though it is provably false.
Identifying regular frauds
The most obvious obvious way to fight lies is with the truth. Musembi Mutisya, the lead data analyst at the Election Observation Group (ELOG) explained that ELOG was spearheading an effort to counteract fake news with open data on elections, sharing verified information.
ELOG and their partners have a network of over 6,000 observers on the ground to monitor elections, and they have a system in place to collect information related to elections that could be of importance to the electorate. Before sharing this information, ELOG verifies it to make sure that it is accurate, and informs the relevant parties who may need to respond to it, which in this case is the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission.
A lot of sites related to the election may not be factual, but they get a lot of traffic, Mutisya explained, giving the example of ‘Uhuru for Us’ and ‘The Real Raila’, which have placed ads on Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram. The information they contain may appear legitimate, but the fact that the individuals behind it are not known means that this information needs to be handled very carefully.
Julian Kamau, the Social Media Lead at newspaper publisher the Standard Group also spoke on the issue of fact checking, and the efforts her team goes to cross-reference details. She focused on various methods put in place to verify information they receive from citizen journalists who use their ‘Ureport’ platform.
One mainstream story that the Standard investigated was a report alleging that the Eritrean government had ordered men in the country to marry two wives. The story was shared widely, drawing attention from all over the world, including from the Government of Eritrea, which demanded a retraction.
Given the nature of the news it covers, especially around election-related matters, journalists from The Standard are learning how to differentiate between what’s real and what’s not, but the team is working at it limit. Kamau explained that the biggest challenge is that everyone has a voice online, and there is a real need for a tool that media houses can use to verify information that they receive online quickly and efficiently.
Passing off
For Esther Wandia, a web administrator at The Star newspaper, “passing off” is also proving to be a difficult problem.
The Star has a crowdsourced citizen journalism platform, Star Reports, that collects information through an Android app. Established in 2012, Star Reports allows users to create and share their stories online. Stories that are deemed newsworthy are circulated in-house and investigated before they are published on the main Star website.
Wandia observed that many fake news websites have links that look legit, and are designed to look like a genuine media outlets’ website, passing off as the real thing. Such sites can fool a casual observer, meaning they are very likely to share the content without interrogating it.
With the problems identified, talk turned to the tools that exist for journalists to sift fact from fiction. Code for Africa software developer James Chege demonstrated how images are often rehashed for stories. He identified one photo that was used in a story about a Ghanaian election and again in a story about delays at a Kenyan polling station.
Using Google Image Search, Chege was able to reverse-search the image to identify that it was actually from South Africa. He was also able to identify when the image was originally published, and various other instances where it was used.
The final speaker was Odanga Madung, co-founder and Data Science lead at Odipo Dev, a research consultancy that has recently published the results from a 3-month study into fake news in Kenya.
A growing number of Kenyans are getting their information from social media, and Odipo Dev’s research showed that they were focused on getting information from mainstream news outlets on those platforms.
While the research was able to identify links shared on mainstream social networks, ‘dark’ networks such as WhatsApp have become the main channel for mass distribution of fake news stories. WhatsApp is fast, simple, and much more intimate compared to other networks such as Facebook or Twitter.
As Madung explained, a number of fake news websites tend to have links similar to those of regular websites, but with a slight difference. They also have a lot of ads, sometimes more ads than actual content, showing that their intent is to make money from these stories as well as to misinform.
The rise of the fake news phenomenon ultimately reveals our character. Its goal is to trick you into sharing the content through a combination of psychology and ease of distribution. It appeals to confirmation bias, where a story shows you something you may have suspected but have never proven. Given the proliferation of mobile devices, one link shared on one social media channel could go all the way around the world before the whole truth puts on its shoes.
Countering the phenomenon of fake news needs constant vigilance and fact-checking, as the panel showed. A number of tools exist, such as Check by Meedan to verify breaking news stories, and Google Reverse Image Search when it comes to stories with photos. It means that you need to know what a fake link looks like, or doing a quick search see if any other news outlets have published the story you’re reading.
Ultimately, the task of fighting fake news lies with those in the business of producing legitimate news, as well as the audience that consumes this information. Before sending that ‘forwarded as received’ message, check to make sure that it’s from a legitimate source.
The worlds of hackers and journalists are coming together, as reporting goes digital and Internet companies become media empires.
Journalists call themselves “hacks,” someone who can churn out words in any situation. Hackers use the digital equivalent of duct tape to whip out code.
Hacker-journalists try and bridge the two worlds. Hacks/Hackers Africa aims to bring all these people together — those who are working to help people make sense of our world. It’s for hackers exploring technologies to filter and visualize information, and for journalists who use technology to find and tell stories. In the age of information overload and collapse of traditional business models for legacy media, their work has become even more crucial.
The StoryLab Academy brings face-to-face training into partner newsrooms across Africa, and hosts public workshops at monthly Hacks/Hackers meet-ups. The Academy offers online courses and webinars, designed to teach just one tool or technique at a time, so participants can upgrade their skills at their own pace. The training is spearheaded by the continent’s largest digital journalism network, Code for Africa, with support from the Google News Lab and World Bank.
Code for Kenya uses data to give citizens hyper-local and hyper-personal information to make better informed decisions about bread & butter issues.
Code for Kenya also builds technology tools to amplify citizen voices.
Code for Africa, the continent’s largest #OpenData and civic technology initiative, recognizes this and is spearheading the establishment of a network of Hacks/Hackers chapters across Africa to help bring together pioneers for collaborative projects and new ventures.
Follow Hacks/Hackers Africa on Twitter and Facebook and join the Hacks/Hackers Nairobi community group today.
