WhatsApp Faces Misinformation Problem in Nigeria, Reports Say (cnet.com) 72
Fake news is being spread on WhatsApp in some of Africa's most populous countries, according to two new reports, raising concerns over coming elections in Nigeria. From a report: Photoshopped images and false claims about politicians have been circulating on the Facebook-owned messaging service in Nigeria, which holds election in February next year, according to a report from The Poynter Institute on Friday. Many of the false claims are in local languages and exploit ethnic friction. One set of false claims focuses on how politicians will address clashes between a group of semi-nomadic herdsmen and farmers, Poynter said. Another rumor claimed a presidential candidate couldn't enter the US because of a corruption charge, Poynter reported.
how can we just ban people from communicating!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Obviously only state approved media should be the only source of any and all messages.
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You know, the same sort of thing used to happen by e-mail. Anyone remember the ridiculous urban legends and scams propagated by e-mail? It occurs for at least two reasons, IMO: people love to gossip and spread rumors, and people were (are?) more naturally predicated to believing anything in print, as it seems more authoritative than someone saying "Hey, I heard from my cousin Frank that..."
And of course, it's not like it started there either. I've been reading WW2 history recently, and noticed many accou
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People will stop believing wild rumours on one medium when they start believing them on another.
Stupidity is like a balloon full of water. Squeeze it in one place and it bulges out in another.
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People almost always do this to themselves. This is one of the reasons man came up with laws to regulate itself.
It seems the larger question at this point, is how do you properly moderate that? If the message board in the local town square was precipitating killings, it would be roped off until further notice.
I think the bigger question in all of this is "who is going to do something to help get this under control before society collapses under the weight of being afraid that regulating misinformation is
Re: how can we just ban people from communicating! (Score:2)
Yay censorship! Only state approved messages are GOOD messages! People are too stupid to think for ourselves! Down with freedom of speech! Big brother loves us all!
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Freedom of speech has never meant freedom to libel or incite violence towards others for example, nor does it cover things like false advertising.
Freedom of speech also does not mean that governments should be able to freely spread false information to their citizens. In Myanmar, it's gotten to the point that Facebook has been used to facilitate outright genocide by spreading altogether false claims about the local muslim minority, and this has been coming from the highest levels of authorities. Facebook re
Re: how can we just ban people from communicating (Score:1)
Imagine if your own government started to do something similar, demonizing one group of individuals and pushing false information through the platforms to support their narrative: 'Look at what the jews/the muslims/the blacks have done, they must be interned to prevent further crime!"
Look what the white people have done! We must check their privilege, raise their taxes, use affirmative action to deny jobs to the more qualified candidates, lower their birthrate through conspiring economic disincentives of student debt and rising housing prices overlaid on a feminist/environmentalist disdain for reproduction!
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Do they even employ people who can read Hausa, Yoruba or Ibo? or any of the other 25 or so languages used in Nigeria?
America may be ok with "The Right to lie your head off" but it is hard to argue they have the right to force this on others who do not have a similar culture.
I personally had a Nigerian woman say to me "Did you know Michelle Obama is a man? It says so here on Youtube!" - which it did, with Photoshopped pic
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You joke, but this is exactly what is being pushed. The media is putting a propagandist's touch on the whole situation, but this is where the ship is sailing.
Where's my sarcastic face? (Score:1)
Re:Where's my sarcastic face? (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sure fake news never happened before the Internet was widely available. I can't find my sarcastic face. Maybe (/s|s\)
In 2010, I hear there were faxes and drums circulating around the country that Goodluck Jonathan (real name) [wikipedia.org] was actually born in the Unites States, not Bayelsa.
(Nigeria is one of the few countries where a president has to be a citizen by birth.)
There's no way around it. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is people. There is no technology that can keep us honest.
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I am an old man, and even though I'm inclined to cynicism, I still believe most people are honest. And gullible, unfortunately.
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If someone is consistently a liar, you can always count on what they say.
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The problem here is lack of education. People don't learn to spot fake news or properly evaluate information they receive.
A few simple tools could really help fix this issue. Social media and chat apps could have a little button next to widely posted images that links to a reverse image search or fact checking site. They could use image analysis or AI to add warnings to photoshopped images (wouldn't that be great for airbrushed fashion models too).
Web browsers could add known fake images and fake news to a
People seek out Fake News (Score:1)
Several years ago, The New York Times ran a story on the Obama administration that was perceived as negative. The paper lost a lot of democrat subscribers as a result of this story. Because of this incident, The New York Times swore off real news and they only produce Fake News since then. But people like msmash insist on consuming these Fake News because they reinforce their belief system and their hate-filled rage!
Same thing in Nigeria. If someone has negative feelings for a group of people, they seek
Democracy and low-information voters (Score:4, Interesting)
Dunno what you can do about "low information voters". Allow me to digress...
Just recently I somehow came across an article from the US, where a biologist had discovered retroviruses in vaccines, and these viruses were responsible for everything from autism to dementia. Having angered the powerful pharma cartels, the researcher was in jail, and all of her data had been confiscated.
Curious, I did a bit of research. As always, there was a kernel of truth. The researcher had, indeed written a paper about retroviruses. She had been fired from her job, and had taken company data (apparently paper files) with her. The company charged her with theft. She handed the data back, and the charges were dropped.
So you get conspiracy theorists who read more into this, in support of their pet paranoia - in this case, clearly anti-vaxxers. They make use of technology - like WhatsApp - to spread their nonsense. In the US, this isn't a huge problem, because enough of the population has enough of an education, and the "low information voters" ultimately don't dominate the voting population.
So...Nigeria... A country where most of the population has little education, and hence few critical thinking skills. The West has given them high technology, but they lack the general level of education to go with it. So the fruits and nuts can spread their nonsense far and wide - and it has a massive influence.
Democratic institutions can only work, when the population has a minimal level of education. The purists pushing democracy as some sort of panacaea? They are indirectly responsible for a lot of death and misery. It's not PC to notice, but the continuous warfare in much of Africa has not been an improvement over colonialism.
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Illiterates may not lack critical thinking, but they certainly lack the tools to check on facts - in many cases, they probably do not un
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I was talking about the poorly educated population [nationmaster.com] in Nigeria. You're the one who brought race into it.
I've been in Africa, I've been involved in a couple of projects there. There are some really great people, but also a pile of problems. Yet, anytime someone tries to discuss those problems, people like you shut down the discussion with cries of "racism".
Who is the real racist, here?
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If someone poisons the water supply, the water company may not be to blame, but if they don't shut off the supply of poisonous water, they are to blame for that and the resulting deaths.
America IS to blame for assuming the rest of the world has a "right to spread lies" rather than a tradition of punishing rumour mongers - who are often inaccessible because they hide behind American corporations and their products. T
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Lies are words — equating them with deeds is where your analogy went wrong.
America believes — and has that belief codified as the very first item in its Bill of Rights — that everybody, wherever in the world they are, has a right to spread lies.
Here
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Possibly, but consider:
it is not the "occasional falsehood" it is torrents of the stuff sent for the purpose of inciting hatred
Your government may be a pile of shit, other people's government may be better. The reason your government is likely a pile of shit may be connected
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But you do! You believe, someone — a government agency or official — should be allowed to shut down any source of (what he considers to be) a lie.
That's a recipe — and a very quick recipe — to government corruption. Trump may accuse CNN of spreading "fake news", for example, but he can neither shut them up, nor imprison them over it. You'd like your government to be able to do that...
Oh, I certainly have no interest in
The damage has already been done (Score:1)
let's figure out where the real problem is (Score:2)
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Sure, let's figure out the real reason why people in sub-saharra Africa routinely get murdered for being penis thieving sorcerers [duckduckgo.com] or how the theat of vampires causes public panics. [duckduckgo.com] Got a flameproof suit?
There's environmental issues such as disease and pollution, and childhood malnutrition. There's the obvious lack of education leading to the %60 literacy rate, and then there's the lovely cultural habit of keeping marriage within the family. [britannica.com] All of which contributes to an average IQ rate of about 70, which
Spain is the next... (Score:1)