Social media has undoubtedly become society's primary source of entertainment, communication, and information. Monthly active Facebook users in Afrika total 139 million, while Twitter records Afrikan monthly users at 50 million.
The ease of use of social media has substantially decreased the cost of producing news and information. Small to medium players with efficient tools are now challenging conventional media companies in this formerly high entry-level news generation, which was controlled by traditional media firms.
With disruption comes new challenges. Internet bandwidth is clogged with fake news and disinformation. Unreliable and even dubious news without merit or credibility spread like wildfire online. The Diepsloot demonstrations in Gauteng, South Africa, demonstrated how serious this can become, with untrustworthy xenophobic propaganda fueling outrage and leading to the death of a Zimbabwean national.
Yossabel Chetty of the Center of Analytics & Behavioral Change joins us on iAfrikan BYTES to talk about how they use brand monitoring technologies to track, monitor, and analyze online narratives in real-time to report on and prevent fake news.
