Social media users, Government oppositions and incumbents as well as influencers have been identified as those responsible for spreading Fake News, Misinformation and Disinformation (FMD) in Nigeria.
This was disclosed by Dr Obasanjo Oyedele during the presentation of his research findings on the Political Economy of FMD at the anti-corruption postdoctoral fellowship seminar series organized by Civic Media Lab.
Making the presentation, Dr Oyedele said the research is set out to bring to the fore, identify networks and frequency of FMD and whether the users of social media promote FMD.
Dr Oyedele who said, “the media is being blamed for promoting FMD because the terrain permits it”, added that, “the analysis showed that those who spread FMD are social media users, government opposition, influencers, the government in power amongst others.”
He buttressed that the report identified WhatsApp, Facebook, Blogs, Twitter, mainstream media and websites as major platforms for spreading FMD in the country.
Dr Oyedele said FMDs travel from politicians, and corporate organisations along with layers of interests which include trained media professionals, untrained bloggers and ordinary social and digital media users weaponized as ‘data boys’, influencers and supporters of political parties who are actively online and ordinary members of the community.
The researcher noted that when FMD get to the public sphere, they ride on existing political, ethnic/tribal, religious and cultural frictions or fractures to spread and achieve believability albeit with economic, social and psychological costs borne mostly by helpless citizens.
According to Dr Oyedele, to solve the problem of FMDs “fact-checkers need to be multiplied,” adding that, “the media needs to be strengthened to counter FMD.”
Giving his opening remarks at the event, Prof Ayo Ojebode, the former Head of Communication and Language Arts Department at the University of Ibadan noted that the post mutual fellowship was a way of strengthening the academic capacity of journalists.
Earlier Mr Seun Akinfolarin, Director, Civic Media Lab in his opening remarks said that Civic Media Lab works on research design and training for newsrooms to understand investigations deeply.
The other researches that were presented during the 3-day post-doctoral fellowship seminar series were: “Corruption and Insecurity” by Dr Eze Prince and “Elections and Electoral Malpractices in Nigeria” by Dr Harrison Idowu.