Nigerians, especially government officials worry about the spread of fake news in the country because of the unintended consequences

By Anayo Ezugwu

The deliberate effort to makeup stories either to fool or entertain people is nothing new in Nigeria. But the emergence of social media have seen people presenting fake stories as real news and it is becoming increasingly difficult tell the difference. This is made worse because of the capacity of the Internet to enabled simultaneous sharing of information globally in ways that previous generations could only dream of. And one fake news shared to a large ignorant audience could have some unintended consequences. Just like the recent spread of the rumour that the Nigerian army was injecting school children with monkeypox virus which caused panic in several states of the federation prompting many parents to withdraw their children from schools.

This is one of the reasons why the upsurge in fake news in Nigeria is becoming increasingly worrisome, especially as more people are connected to the internet either through the computer or telephone. The Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, says that the country has 139,905,213 active telephone lines as at September 2017. This suggests that an increasing proportion of Nigerian adults maybe getting their news from social media. It’s also likely that more and more of them are seeing and believing information that is likely to be inaccurate.

This is added to the fact that there are hundreds of fake news websites out there ranging from those which deliberately imitate real life newspapers to government propaganda sites, and even those which tread the line between satire and plain misinformation.

Instances of fake news reeled out to the public as news stories abound. On May 14, there was a fake report on the social media that Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari was dead in a London hospital where he was on a medical vacation. The fake news quoted Metro UK website as reporting the story. The presidency quickly dismissed the report as fake news. The president has since returned to the country hale and hearty.

In late August, there was news on the social media that people should stop drinking Pepsi because it was contaminated with HIV.  According to a report first published by The Sun UK, Pepsi was hit by a sick hoax after a fake Met police statement was shared online claiming that the fizzy drink contained HIV-infected blood. The message – falsely attributed to Met Police– claimed that Pepsi bottles in the United Kingdom (UK) were contaminated. It began to re-circulating on social media in Britain after previously appearing in a different format in India. They alleged that contaminated bottles were in the UK, and stated that the warning comes from the Metropolitan Police. The message also said that the incident was “shown on Sky News.”

However both the UK Metropolitan Police and Sky News have denied ever reporting such story. In Nigeria, medical experts have assured Nigerians that there is no need to worry, describing the story as untrue as the HIV virus cannot survive up to five minutes outside the human body.

Another instance of fake news happened on Tuesday, September 19, when Nigerians were inundated  with the circulation of fake version of President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly. In a tweet, the presidency warned that a fake version of the speech yet to be delivered was in circulation.

Femi Adesina, special adviser to the president on media and publicity, said those who carry fake news about the president want to cause disenchantment and expose him to ridicule and hatred. According to him, there are many reasons why people will create and disseminate fake news, but top on his list is mischief.

At the fifth anniversary lecture of News Express in Lagos, on September 28, Adesina said statistics has showed that the world consume more fake news than the real news. He said during the 2016 US presidential election, 20 pieces of fake news was broadcast; more than 20 million people rebroadcast, shared and re-tweeted it. While the same number of main news was broadcast and only seven thousand people rebroadcast or shared it.

“Just last Tuesday, September 19, the president addressed the United Nations, UN, but on Monday I saw a purported speech that the president was supposed to present at the UN meeting. But because I read the original copy of the speech I knew that it was fake. Next to fake news is hate news. Those behind them do not mean well for this country,” Adesina said.

Nevertheless, a survey by the BBC World Service in September this year  showed that there is a growing concern by Nigerians on the widespread of fake news on the internet as it is eroding societal values. The survey stated that 88 percent of Nigerians are worried about the hazy line between the real and fake news flooding the internet. Hence, prompting the government to consider regulating citizens’ activities on the internet.

The survey, which involves 18 countries across the globe, further revealed that 79 percent of respondents expressed worries about what is authentic as regards information gotten from the online platform. For Africa, Nigeria has the highest level internet penetration rate, thus, making fake news or propaganda spread easily among the public.

However, only China and the United Kingdom have a relative moderate online environment, and it is as a result of high government regulation of online activities. More so, the majority of respondents in these countrmies expressed support for continuation of the government’s online monitoring programmes (67 percent for China and 53 percent for the United Kingdom).

In Nigeria, governments’ blames spread of fake news on the opposition and threatened to curtail the use of social media. There is a cybercrime law now in the country which the government can use to rein in fake news specialists. Lai Mohammed, minister of information and culture, said at a media conference organised by the Nigeria Governors Forum for media handlers of state governors that “Never before this evil twins of misinformation and fake news permeated the public space as they have now. And, make no mistake about it, they have become potent weapons in the hands of the opposition.

“Sadly, they will be the biggest obstacles we are going to face from now till the 2019 general elections. In recent days, you’ve all seen the dangers posed, not just to you but even to the general public by those who have chosen to use misinformation and fake news as a weapon of choice.”

– Oct 27, 2017 @ 18:35 GMT |