Nigerian Fact Checkers Fight Election Misinformation With AI Tools

Full Fact, a UK-based charity which tackles misinformation through fact-checking and campaigns, is partnering with organisations dedicated to promoting credibility in information during the upcoming general election in Nigeria on February 25, 2023.

Collaborating with International Fact Checking Network (IFCN) members Africa Check, Dubawa, and FactCheckHub, Full Fact will expand the use of its AI tools to stop the spread of misinformation during the election.

The project, made possible by a $2 million grant from Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org, has already seen remarkable results. With the support of seven dedicated technical Google.org Fellows who worked on a pro bono basis, Full Fact’s AI technology has seen a 1000x increase in claim detection (i.e. identifying which claims are most important to fact-check) and helped scale their fact-checks to appear in 237 million search results in 2020.

The editor of FactCheckHub, Opeyemi Kehinde, said, “Using the Full Fact AI tool, built in collaboration with Africa Check, has enhanced our work ahead of Nigeria’s 2023 general election. Since we were on-boarded, our team of fact-checkers and researchers at the Nigerian Fact-checkers Coalition (NFC) have been utilising the AI platform to source claims for debunking easily.

“The platform also comes in handy for our live checks of political town halls and debates for candidates, especially its live transcription feature, which we hope to utilise in the days before the election.”