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Claims: Viral videos circulating on TikTok claim that the social media platform will be banned in Nigeria and Ghana.
Verdict: False! No official information from the platform or the governments of Ghana and Nigeria alludes to the claim. A detailed review of the videos used to make the claim shows that they are AI-generated.
Full Text
Viral videos, such as these, circulating on social media claim that a ban on the Chinese-owned social media platform TikTok is imminent in Ghana and Nigeria.
The videos claim that the two countries have set a June 30 deadline to ban video-based social media platforms.
According to one of the videos, the decision to ban the platform is due to “youth distraction.”
The videos have received thousands of reactions, including over 60,000 views and 4,000 comments.
In some of the videos, a newscaster reads out the claim from a studio setting. In contrast, others, such as this video, feature an amateur content creator providing commentary on the alleged plan and urging her followers to resist it.
According to Meltwater and We Are Social, TikTok is one of the most dominant social media platforms in Ghana and Nigeria, with over 40 million active users in both countries. Given the platform’s influence, the claim warrants investigation, particularly in light of recent events involving the platform and the US government’s threat to ban it.
Verification
To verify this claim, we conducted multiple searches on the X accounts of Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Information and Ghana’s Information Services Department, both of which are responsible for disseminating official government information. Using keywords such as “TikTok” and “TikTok ban,” the search results did not show any information suggesting a planned ban on TikTok in either country.
A review of major news websites such as Premium Times in Nigeria and Myjoyonline also showed no publication about a planned ban on TikTok in either country.
To further verify the claim, some of the videos used were subjected to thorough manual verifications. The chosen videos appeared to show government officials of the two countries addressing the press and announcing the ban.
In this video, supposedly showing a Nigerian official announcing the ban, it was discovered that beyond the presenter’s overly smooth skin texture—a characteristic of generative AI videos—the podium was riddled with several spelling errors, a known flaw in most AI-generated videos.
For instance, instead of the official name ‘Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation & Digital Economy’ in Nigeria, the video has ‘Federal Ministry of Communication.’
Additionally, the logo on the podium is uncharacteristic of the official logo of the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, which typically features Nigeria’s coat of arms.
Other errors identified include the wrong spelling of ‘briefing’ and ‘Abuja’ —Nigeria’s capital.
In this video purportedly showing a Ghanaian official announcing the ban, it was discovered that the logo behind the presenter was not associated with Ghana.
It bears no semblance to any of Ghana’s national logos.
Additionally, it is noted that the right corner of the video has the watermark “veo”.
The watermark serves as an indication that the video was generated using AI. According to technology news website Mashable, the ‘veo’ watermark was automatically placed on videos produced with Google Veo, an AI video generation tool.
The watermark was to make the videos more identifiable as AI-generated.
Ghanaian investigative journalist and fact-checker Philip Teye Agbove, with The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), in an interview, described the claims about a planned TikTok ban in Ghana as completely false and untrue, noting that there has been no official communication to that effect.
“It appears to be misleading and possibly AI-generated content aimed at confusing. I urge the public to disregard such claims and always verify from trusted sources, “ he said in a WhatsApp reply.
Toheeb Babalola, a freelance journalist in Nigeria with Fact Check Africa, also said the claim was “false and untrue.”
Conclusion
As claimed, there is no imminent ban on TikTok in Ghana or Nigeria. The videos being used to make the claim are AI-generated.
