Facebook launched its third party fact checking last year to help fact check news being disseminated on its platform. This was available in a few countries and now they are expanding this facility to more locations.
The company has said that they have now expanded their fact checking to more countries across Sub Saharan Africa.
Third party fact check will now be available in Ethiopia, Zambia, Somalia and Burkina Faso through AFP, Uganda and Tanzania through both Pesa Check and AFP, Democratic Repulic of Congo and Cote d’Ivoire through France 24 observers and AFP, Guinea through France 24 observers and Ghana through Dubawa.
This means than now Facebook has expanded this fact checking programme to over 15 countries in Africa. The above countries join Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Cameroon and Senegal in that regard.
Fact checking is an important exercise done by Facebook and its partners. People on Facebook report a story that they deem as false and such signals are raised to fact checkers for review. If the story is identified as being false, Facebook will show it lower in the News Feed, significantly reducing its distribution. Also, Page Admins will receive notifications if they try to share a story or have shared one in the past that has been determined to be false.
In August, Facebook announced that they have added support for 10 new languages in the quest to fact check content. This included Swahili, Wolof (senegal), Yoruba & Igbo (Nigeria), Afrikaans, Zulu, Setswana, Sotho, Northern Sotho and Southern Ndebele in South Africa. AFP will do fact checking in English and French across 8 countries while Pesa Check will provide fact checking services in Swahili and English.
