The AFAWI Covid-19 Fact Check Project works against the dangerous spreading of so-called Fake News or False Information, by working together with the reliable and independent fact check organisation Dubawa Ghana.

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The spreading of so called fake news or false information, especially on social media, became a huge problem all over the world within the last years, as not only due to growing digitization and globalisation, each of us receives a massive flood of information on a daily basis, especially via social media. Thereby many articles or videos may appear to be true, but often are not, as false information is disguised as reliable news to deliberately misinform or deceive readers. Especially in times of collective global insecurity and fear, the spreading of fake news became even more dangerous.

 

Also the Covid-19 outbreak has been accompanied by a so-called infodemic- an over-abundance of information, some accurate and some not (WHO) - that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it the most.

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After observing the current developments regarding Covid19 in Ghana, meanwhile one of the major problems undermining the government efforts to mitigate the spread and impact of the novel virus in the country, is the wide distribution of fake and misinformation about the disease in the communities. This development is observed with growing concern, as it makes people less likely to consume right information and can therefore clearly affect people’s health.

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With publishing the Covid19 fact checks of Dubawa Ghana in the form of videos on the AFAWI Social Media pages, we want to be an antithesis to disinformation and create awareness on this dangerous problem. 

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The videos have reached so far over 105,000 social media users.

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Thereby the collaboration of two Ghanaian organizations for this project is seen as very helpful, because the mistrust in public national and international entities when it comes to the consumption of information regarding Covid19, cannot be neglected.