Less META fact-checking will cripple local journalism and encourage Chinese and Russian propaganda in Sub-Saharan Africa, write Haruna Mohammed Salisu and Idris Mohammed.
At the start of 2025, Facebook and Instagram’s parent company Meta announced they would end their third-party fact-checking system in favour of a “Community Notes” system driven by the users. A third-party fact-checking system uses independent fact-checkers “that are certified through the non-partisan International Fact-Checking”. Community Notes relies on the “wisdom of the crowd” to flag inappropriate content.
In today’s connected world, access to credible local news is vital to the survival of democracy and an informed publics. In places such as Sub-Saharan Africa, where Meta’s platforms dominate news sharing and public debate, the Meta’s decision will have adverse effects. It will hurt local journalism by removing vital support, training, and resources that fact-checking organisations and journalists in Sub-Saharan Africa relied on. This will make it harder for them to sustain fact-checking efforts, combat disinformation, and hold leaders accountable in regions where misinformation is already rampant.
International partners interested in deepening democracy have relied on local journalists to provide culturally nuanced reporting that’s impossible for non-natives to perform. Local journalism in Sub-Saharan Africa has a track record of accurate, factual and context driven reporting. Local journalism in Africa has given citizens the information they need to make choices about their leaders, policies and public priorities.
The decision by Meta, to stop its fact-checking systems is dangerous for local journalism. Under its old system, Meta’s interventions helped curtail information disorder ecosystems in Africa. Meta’s collaboration with third-party fact-checking organizations in Africa slowed the rise and spread of misleading information that circulates on its sites and other social media platforms. Its partnership with Africa Check, the first African independent fact-checking site is one notable example of its footprint in the continent. The partnership has helped verify public-facing claims so users can receive authentic and factual information.
During the 2023 Nigeria’s general election, for instance, a total of 127 claims “were fact-checked during the Presidential and NASS elections and the Governors” as documented by FactCheckHub. In Ghana, an association of fact-checkers, in partnership with over 100 radio and TV stations in all 16 regions share fact-checked news in some 45 local languages during the country’s recent election.
Meta facilitated an ideathon in Addis Ababa held by Africa Check and Inform Africa in December 2024. The event gathered researchers and pioneers to work on how to counter disinformation. Such commitments have helped local organizations on the continent to develop a local model for fact-checking and debunking propaganda backed by state and non-state actors.
Meta provided fact-checking organisations and journalists with training and expertise to help them identify and debunk misinformation and disinformation. The recent elections held in Nigeria and Ghana, for example, saw the massive rise of misinformation and so are the efforts to contain them. Concerted fact-checking has prevented electoral fake news and helped to preserve the democratic process.
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The move by Meta to switch from professional fact-checking to a slew of user-generated mechanisms (Community Notes) has raised questions about how local journalism efforts to fight misinformation on the continent going forward.
Social media are the primary outlets for news consumption in most African countries, especially for younger people. Sadly, they are also drivers of toxic propaganda by state and non-state actors.
Its decision will deplete the resources and capabilities of local news organisations and create an information gap — one that will erode trust on local content that informs citizens and situates world events within African context.
Fact-checking is expensive particularly at this age of hybrid warfare. No local outlet on the continent will be able to sustain its practices without support. With Meta ending its interventions, the space is now left for toxic exploitation. The weaponisation of information, by state players – China and Russia for instance – will fill in the gaps left by local journalism with propaganda that furthers their geopolitical agenda.
There is documented evidence that points to how China and Russia influence the socio-economic and political affairs of African countries, particularly the Francophone countries of Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali and Chad.
In the past 10 years, both countries have been progressively extending their grip, harnessing media as soft power to change the narrative and unseat Western control of the world information market.
China has lavished funds on African media networks through platforms such as China Global Television Network (CGTN) Africa, and alliances with regional stations. Beijing has encouraged a narrative of Africa-China cooperation based on reciprocity and non-interference. China has in the process veiledly entrenched narratives that distract from its own human rights record and totalitarian regime.
Russia has also used its state media (RT and Sputnik) to spread material in African markets. But Russia’s game isn’t just about the media. It has turned to underground activity, and social networks to ramp up disinformation.
Russian disinformation channels have interfered in electoral campaigns in a number of African countries to inflame doubt and mistrust in democracy, as documented by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. These campaigns usually play on complaints against colonial pasts, portraying Western democracies as imperialist powers and Russia as an Africa-wide partner in countering Western superiority.
The Kremlin’s influence and a growing pro-Russian sentiment fuelled by propaganda are viral on the social media pages of Facebook and TikTok, particularly in the recent hunger and anti-bad governance protest in Nigeria. Young people for instance took to the streets promoting Russian influence in West Africa, waging its flag and calling it to intervene in Nigeria`s crisis using local Hausa language.
Meta’s choice to end its intervention in checking the proliferation of false narratives gives these players a huge advantage.
Properly educated voters are essential to functioning democracies, but propaganda narratives conceal the truth, which results in disappointment, numbness or a poor choice of political strategy. Russia’s operations in Africa, for example, have been associated with more support for authoritarian regimes and short-term stabilisation policies over long-term democratic development.
Economically, the collapse of regional journalism only compounds inequalities in media availability and coverage.
Less-affluent countries or regions with good media infrastructures may weather Meta’s shifts, but other societies will be worse off. It’s often these places that are most prone to fake news and least prepared to counter foreign propaganda.
It’s concerning that in these critical times Meta has chosen actions that will bolster Russia and China’s misinformation campaigns. This decision will decimate local journalism’s investment in preserving democracy and checking Chinese and Russian influence in the African continent, especially in sub-Saharan Africa where coups and countercoups continue to embolden authoritarian regimes.
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