Facebook to Battle Misinformation with African Languages

Facebook says it will fight fake news on its platform, using Nigeria’s Yoruba and Igbo languages. According to Facebook’s Head of Public policy, Africa, Kojo Boakye, the two languages are in addition to the Hausa language, already supported by the platform. The social media platform is collaborating with Africa Check, an independent fact-checking organisation to add new local language support for several African languages as part of its Third-Party Fact-Checking programme. The programme intends to assess the accuracy of news on Facebook and reduce the spread of misinformation.

Launched in 2018, the programme has also expanded its local language coverage across Kenya in   (Swahili), Senegal in (Wolof), and South Africa in (Afrikaans, Zulu, Setswana, Sotho, Northern Sotho and Southern Ndebele). Senegal and Cameroon are also included in the coverage