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The Ghana Fact-Checking Coalition concluded its eight-day live election fact-checking on Dec. 11 with a press briefing in its situation room. The coalition, which comprises DUBAWA Ghana, Fact-Check Ghana, and Ghana Fact, and a network of CSOs and media partners was established to produce accurate reports before, during, and after Ghana’s highly anticipated elections. To combat election-related misinformation and disinformation, the coalition established three media situation rooms to monitor the elections from Dec. 4 to Dec. 11.
In her closing remarks, Gifty Tracy Aminu, programme officer for Fact Space West Africa, commended the various fact-checking organisations for their immense contribution during the intensive eight-day work.
Ms Aminu also highlighted the crucial role of traditional media in ensuring that the accurate reports produced by the coalition were distributed to citizens through various platforms.
Ms. Gifty Tracy Aminu, programmes officer, Ghana Fact. Image Source: CJID
In presenting the coalition’s findings, Roselena Ahiable, programmes manager for DUBAWA Ghana, reiterated the coalition’s importance in an era when the media is politicised to spread false news and highlighted the patterns of misinformation throughout.
“The Media Situation Room reviewed and fact-checked reports on political party-related issues more than any other issue during the monitoring period. Party-related issues comprised either a misinformation narrative aimed at presenting a political party as a desirable choice or a narrative aimed at making another party unpopular or less desirable,” she said.
She added that other top patterns included misinformation targeting parliamentary candidates, election integrity, and security-related issues. However, most of the claims around these patterns were false.
Roselena Ahiable, Programmes Manager, DUBAWA Ghana. Image Source: CJID
These patterns were mainly propagated on social media (85.3%), television stations (8.8%), news websites (4.4%), and radio (1.5%).
In presenting additional findings from the Coalition’s dashboard, Kwaku Asante-Krobea, senior programmes manager at the Media Foundation for West Africa, highlighted that the coalition worked on 137 claims during the entire period. Of these, the Coalition members published 98 fact-check reports across all their websites, with 12 disapproved and 27 pending publication after further investigations.
Kwaku Krobea-Asante, senior programmes manager at MFWA. Image Source: CJID
He added that 57 of these claims were sourced from X (formerly Twitter), 22 from Facebook, 10 from TikTok, 9 from WhatsApp, 3 from Instagram, 1 from LinkedIn, 17 from multiple sources, and 12 others.
He also mentioned that after investigating the claims from the various sources, 72 were rated false, 27 were rated true, 24 were found to be misleading, one was a hoax, and five were rated insufficient evidence.
A major concern was the use of AI to clone the voices of the major contenders in the election. Kwaku Krobea-Asante highlighted how the voices of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia and John Mahama were cloned to spread false narratives, some with ethnic insinuations. He said this was a dangerous development for the country’s young democracy.
A cross-section of the press at the briefing. Image Source: CJID
The Ghana Fact-Checking Coalition’s Media Situation Room was supported by CDD, CODEO, WANEP, and Digital Africa Lab.
