Code for Africa employs teams to manipulate social media algorithms and dismantle disinformation across more than 20 countries.
Tattle in India develops machine learning tools to tackle misinformation on WhatsApp in different Indian languages, emphasizing the need for collaborative efforts to create safer online environments.
Deep dives
The Danger of Misinformation
Misinformation at scale can be dangerous, particularly when it comes to our democracies. Online disinformation is not just a human problem, but an algorithmic problem as well, exploited by political forces worldwide. Social media platforms need to allocate more resources to protect elections and societies between elections. The global industry of disinformation for hire is worth millions of dollars and operates like a well-oiled machine, creating fake accounts and manipulating social media algorithms to amplify messages.
Dismantling Disinformation in Africa
Code for Africa, the largest network of civic tech and open data groups in Africa, is working to dismantle disinformation across more than 20 countries. They employ sophisticated teams to build campaigns that generate manipulated media and create artificial surges of attention on topics, exploiting social media algorithms. Collaboration between social media platforms, technology companies, and local watchdog organizations is crucial in fighting disinformation at scale.
Fighting Disinformation in India
Tattle, an open-source project in India, tackles misinformation on WhatsApp by developing machine learning tools to understand and verify information shared in different Indian languages. Hate speech and misinformation are closely connected, setting the stage for election violence. Platforms like WhatsApp need to address issues related to hate speech and language handling. Collaborative efforts, involving local contributors and researchers, can help moderate online conversations and create safer environments.
Murky political groups are exploiting social media systems to spread disinformation. With important elections taking place around the world this year, who is pushing back? We meet grassroots groups in Africa and beyond who are using AI to tackle disinformation in languages and countries underserved by big tech companies.
Justin Arenstein is the founder of Code for Africa, an organization that works with newsrooms across 21 countries to fact check, track and combat the global disinformation industry.
Tarunima Prabhakar builds tools and datasets to respond to online misinformation in India, as co-founder of the open-source technology community, Tattle.
Sahar Massachi was a data engineer at Facebook and now leads the Integrity Institute, a new network for people who work on integrity teams at social media companies.
Raashi Saxena in India was the global project coordinator of Hatebase, a crowdsourced repository of online hate speech in 98 languages, run by the Sentinel Project.
IRL is an original podcast from Mozilla, the non-profit behind Firefox. In Season 6, host Bridget Todd shares stories of people who make AI more trustworthy in real life. This season doubles as Mozilla’s 2022 Internet Health Report. Go to the report for show notes, transcripts, and more.
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