Viral Facts Africa debunking health misinformation through shareable social content

This initiative creates fact-based health information presented in a clear and accessible way to help stop the spread of misinformation

Viral Facts Africa, in collaboration with the WHO Regional Office For Africa and other leading African fact checking organisations aims to combat health misinformation online. Viral Facts Africa is managed by Fathm, a news lab, consultancy and agency that facilitates impactful innovation and drives sustainable change in journalism.

The initiative is currently publishing content on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in English and French.

We had a chat with Tom Trewinnard, co-founder at Fathm and social content editor at Viral Facts Africa, Ann Ngengere about the importance and impact of the work they’re doing.

What is Viral Facts Africa about, and how can people use your platform to verify facts?

Viral Facts Africa is part of the Africa Infomedic Response Alliance (AIRA), a trusted public health institution and fact-checkers network. We work to make scientific, fact-based health information highly visual, engaging and shareable on social media. People reach us by sending us questions via direct message or using hashtag VFACheck on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Why did Viral Facts Africa start this initiative?

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an infodemic — a situation in which false claims and much of the information leads to widespread confusion and misunderstanding. In 2020, there was so much information about Covid-19 cures, treatments and origins of the virus, and it became increasingly difficult to know what to believe. We started Viral Facts Africa to help people find accurate, fact-based health information and stop the spread of harmful false claims.

Our primary goal is to stop the spread of health misinformation and bridge health information gaps quickly. Lack of accurate and timely information is a breeding ground for misinformation, so we want to make timely fact-based health information presented in a clear and accessible way.

How has the response been? Are consumers using your platform?

The response has been good. There’s increasing awareness about the role we play in fighting health misinformation. Since December, our content has reached over 30 million views on social platforms. We’re seeing more people sending in questions and sharing our posts on social platforms.

Why does Viral Facts Africa mainly focus on debunking health misinformation,?

Health misinformation endangers lives. Since the start of the pandemic, we’ve seen wild conspiracies around unproven treatments, false cures and anti-vaccine messages. We counter this by debunking myths, sharing explainers on questions sent to us, and create engaging content to help people spot health misinformation.

What impact do you hope to achieve?

We measure impact both in terms of the reach and engagement of our content and whether our content leaves people better informed about the topics we address. We’re currently working with regional and international partners on research to understand that better, which we’ll use to inform how we present and distribute content moving forwards.

Do you think platforms such as yours can combat disinformation and fake news?

Yes. In any fight against “fake news”, providing access to fact-based information that is engaging and shareable is essential. Moreover, we’re giving people the knowledge and tools they need to understand better their role in helping stop the spread of false information and why that’s an important challenge for us to tackle as a society.

The content on Viral Facts Africa is mostly in English and French. Are there plans to create content in other major African indigenous languages?

To date we’ve been focused on English and French, and have done small amounts of content in Portuguese and Kiswahili. But we’re keen to expand into other languages and are looking at ways to partner with organisations that can help with Indigenous language expertise.

How are you making sure you are reaching Africans in remote and rural areas who may not be on social media platforms?

We’re certainly focused on digital platforms at the moment — content that works both for social networks and messaging apps. We’ve started there because it’s on these platforms that we’ve been able to identify misinformation and information gaps. Certainly these issues also exist in remote and rural areas too, however — to reach these audiences we’re thinking about ways to partner with mass media and community radio, but it’s early days on this front.

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