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Do you think your conversations are being listened to or that you are in some way being stalked on Instagram (IG)? I know I do sometimes. Although the jury is still out on whether or not some or all of these social media applications like Instagram, are listening in to our conversations, etc.,  it is worth noting that computer algorithms have gotten so advanced that they may seem to be doing just that but that may not entirely be the case. Let’s look at these scenarios below:

Scenario 1:

It’s Monday and Mother’s day is coming up on Friday. Abena is thinking about what to get her mother on the upcoming special day. Between Monday and Thursday, she visits her mother three times that week. 

On Wednesday evening, Instagram suggests crochet napkins to Abena. Abena suddenly recalls seeing her mother spend too much time hovering over a set of crocheted napkins at the mall some weeks back. A light bulb goes off in Abena’s head…then she wonders, how did IG know?

Scenario 2:

Kwasi finally got his first phone for his 16th birthday and is excited to finally download and enjoy all the social media applications his friends have been talking about and creating content for.

Upon signing up for Facebook and Instagram, he sees that friends, family, and people that he knows through his friends or have not been in contact with for a long time are being suggested to him. 

What is happening?!

Experts say what these applications are doing is tracking, not listening. 

In scenario 1, how did IG know the perfect gift to suggest for Abena?

Applications, in this case, IG specifically, collect data and use it to market, suggest or even entertain you.  In this particular scenario, location tracking plays a key role in the suggestions made by IG. Instagram is able to determine your location and who else is within that location within a period of time. In this case, Abena’s mother is likely, due to her interest in crocheted items (napkins), to have searched on Facebook (let’s assume this is the only application she actively uses) for crocheted napkins. 

Facebook and IG being ‘siblings,’ share information they gather between each other, providing the connection to why the napkins came up in Abena’s suggestions. Facebook knows that Abena and her mum are friends on Facebook, the app also knows too well that Mother’s day is coming, and since Abena is present and active on IG as well, it channels that associated content to her.

Taking it a bit further, Abena’s mother had probably visited a crochet shop with the hopes of buying a crocheted napkin set, and thanks to Facebook’s location tracking, this information is kept and shared with Abena as an ad by virtue of their connection on Facebook and record of their time spent together.  This would explain why Abena will have crocheted napkins pop up in her timeline.

For scenario two, the following example explain what could have happened:

• Linked social media accounts:

Applications like Instagram and Facebook are owned by the same organisation, Meta, and offer the opportunity to link accounts. What happens then is that when you follow a person on one, this person is likely to be suggested in the other.

• Application access to phone contacts:

Once you grant a social media application access to your contacts, it uses this information to suggest friends for you on the app. This works the other way as well, where a person may be suggested to you even if you do not have their contact details because they may have you in theirs. 

• Running searches and search history:

You may have been told to look up someone in order to get the “full tea” being spilled. You spend some time on the person’s page and then leave without following or liking any of their posts. A few days later after you have forgotten the hot “tea”, the person is suggested to you.

• Mutual friends:

You are likely to have friend suggestions from people that you have mutual friends with on the application. For instance, Ama and Kojo start dating and are connected on IG. Afi is Kojo’s best friend; Atswei is Ama’s classmate and all of them are on IG. The app algorithm is likely to suggest Atwei to Kojo and Afi for Ama to follow. The more mutual friends you have in common with a person, the more likely you are to appear in your friend suggestions.

Algorithms are getting better at knowing us based on what we do online, and the information they gather on us. We can either enjoy the pros that come with it or be cautious of our usage and the access we give these applications. 

Oftentimes, we allow cookies to be installed on our devices which makes tracking and ad customizations, among other things possible.  You can read more on cookies here.

The tracking mechanism also explains why you find Instagram showing you multiple spa ads after searching for or viewing one or more spa posts on the app.

What can you do? 

Well, unless you intend to leave social media altogether, you can consider exploring permissions, where you can limit, to an extent, how these applications use your information and how they track you.

Claim: Nhyira 104.5FM has posted two videos on Facebook of young men being flogged, with a claim that they are homosexuals.

Dubawa has analyzed the videos and has found the claim to be false.

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On Tuesday, February 1, 2022, a verified Facebook page, Nhyira 104.5FM posted two 30-seconds videos on its platform.

In the separate videos which may appear inappropriate or offensive to some viewers , two young men, who were topless, with their arms and legs wrapped around a pillar were subjected to heavy  flogging  in the presence of onlookers.

The caption given by Nhyira 104.5FM reads, “alleged gay partners flogged mercilessly in public.”

The two videos have an average of 720.5K views, 2.5K comments, 5.8K reactions, and have been shared 2.4K times.

Verification

To authenticate the claim, we took a screenshot and did a Google Reverse Image Search to help discover similar images on the web.

There were several matching images that came up in the search.

These included images similar to the video content published on Facebook by Nhyira 104.5

In a 2021 publication on newsnaira.net, the photo was used among several others to narrate how young people were flogged in Imo State, Nigeria, for taking ‘Mkpuru Mmiri’ drugs. It was also used in another opinion article, published on 774ngr.com, highlighting the usage of Crystal Meth among the youth in Iglo land in Nigeria, and the “unorthodox method to curb the menace.”

A YouTube video, uploaded in November 2021 contained visuals of young people being flogged for using the drug.

A naijanews.com publication in November 2021, which used the same image also mentioned the use of the drug and made reference to how young people in Nigeria were flogged to serve as a deterrent to others.

A Facebook user, Millionzz Icehood, also shared the same videos in a Group. The description for the video indicated that the youth were punished by a vigilante team for drug abuse.

Another page on Facebook, Ndi Igbo, has several such videos, all related to incidents where young people in Nigeria were flogged as punishment for using the Mkpuru Mmiri’ drugs.

When DUBAWA contacted a reporter at Premium Times, Nigeria, QueenEsther Iroanusi to confirm whether there are instances where people are publicly flogged for abusing drugs in Igboland, she said: 

“I spoke to a few friends I have in the South East and whilst they are saying that people who abuse these substances are publicly flogged, they do not know of any case where people were flogged for being homosexuals. There is a high chance that the people who were being flogged in the video were being flogged for abusing the substance and not homosexuality,” she said.

What is Mkpuru Mmiri?

Mkpuru Mmiri is an Igbo slang for Crystal Methamphetamine. The drug is described in an article published on punchng.com by Edith Nkem as an “extremely potent and addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous system and several other systems of the body.”

A November 2021 article on vanguardngr.com indicated that many Igbo communities were “currently facing the dangerous effect of the use of the drug.”

There is also a publication on allafrica.com highlighting the escalation of the use of the drug among Nigeria’s youthful population.

Conclusion

The young men who were flogged in the videos posted by Nhyira 104.5FM could not have been because they were homosexuals. 

A recent directive requesting foreigners living in Ghana to re-register their sim cards by using only the Ghana Card appears to have generated some controversy. It is apparent that a  number of people were unaware that foreigners living in Ghana were entitled to a Ghana card and some of them have been quick to express their surprise  through comments on social media. 

It is, therefore, important to understand the history of the Ghana Card and who, by law, can carry one.

Ghana officially started issuing what has become known as the Ghana Card in September 2018. Although the process started in 2003 and an enabling law passed in 2006 under the National Identification Authority (NIA) Act (2006), it was not until 2018 that many registrants started receiving their cards. 

The Ghana Card is a project by the NIA  facilitated by the National Identification System. It is a National Identity Card that allows holders of the card to prove their identity and citizenship. The card is designed to be secure through the biometric identity of the owner and has a multi-purpose function allowing for electronic and physical transactions.  It is also to ensure access to safer, easier and faster social services in the country, including but not limited to health, education, communications, insurance and banking.

In view of this, when the directive by the Ministry of Communications and Digitalisation to have all sim cards in Ghana re-registered with only the Ghana card from October 2021 to March 2022 was issued, a number of Ghanaians showed their displeasure, particularly because they have since been unsuccessful in registering for their Ghana card. There have been a number of reports of the challenges many Ghanaians are facing in registering for a Ghana Card, and the July 1, 2022 deadline by the Bank of Ghana for banks to use the Ghana Card as the only form of identification seems to have worsened an already difficult situation for some citizens. Some have even declared February 8, a ‘no calls day’ just to protest the sim card re-registration. 

As Ghanaians race against time to meet the deadline for registering their sim cards and to synchronise all their financial transactions with the Ghana Card, concerns have been raised about the pressure at registration centers if foreigners living in Ghana are also mandated to register for the Ghana Card at the same time. Some of them did not even know that by law foreigners in Ghana would be allowed to own a Ghana Card. 

The Non-Citizen Ghana Card for Foreigners

But checks by Dubawa at the  National Identification Authority shows that the Ghana Card, meant to be the main official identity card in the country, allows foreigners to have a Non-Citizen Ghana Card, facilitated by the Foreigner Identification Registration in Ghana. 

As mandated Under the L.I. 2111 (2012), Act 750, all non-citizens or foreigners, who are six years and above and are permanently resident in the country or will be resident in the country for more than 90 days, are entitled to register for the card which is renewable yearly. The only foreigners exempted are diplomats, employees of the UN or its agencies, and the spouses or dependents of such persons as well as refugees who have a valid United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) card. 

Even though both Ghanaians and non-Ghanaians may have the same identity card, there are two distinct features on the Ghana card and the Non-citizen Ghana card. One of the differences is the country code in the Personal Identification Number (PIN) which is in accordance with the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s (ICAO) country codes. For example, a Ghana Card for a citizen will show PIN as GHA-000000000-0, whereas a Non-Citizen Ghana Card for a Nigerian resident would show PIN as NRG-000000000-0. Also, the cards for foreigners living in Ghana  have “NON-CITIZEN” in bold red inscribed in front  of the card. 

According to the NIA, the non-citizen Ghana card can be used for “various transactional purposes such as opening and running a bank account, applying for or renewing residence or work permit, registering a car’’ among others. It also enables the government to create a database of all individuals in the country in order to ensure good planning, good governance, e-government services, and the security and the integrity of the country. 

It is worth highlighting that foreign visitors entering Ghana cannot register to receive the Ghana Cards but only “a foreign visitor who has resided in Ghana for a cumulative period of 90 days or has a residence permit is eligible and will be required to provide personal details to the National Identification Authority for the issuance of a Non-Citizen GhanaCard at a cost of $120,” the NIA stated as an answer to one of the frequently asked questions about registration for the Ghana Card.

From political soundbites  to disease treatment recommendations,  videos  have become one of the modes of disseminating misinformation and fake news. A huge amount of fake news and misinformation overflowing on the web may come in videos. The situation has further been complicated by the development of advanced editing software and artificial intelligence  coupled with the rise of new and social media. 

The January 2022 Hootsuite social report indicates that popular video streaming and sharing platforms, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok, are among the top five most used social media platforms. The report further suggests that 57% of Tiktok users have reported watching less TV and streaming services since downloading the app, an indication that such activity may be consuming a lot more of user generated content. As a result, the demand for  content on these platforms is significantly making room for more content creators leading to a spike in the production of  unverified information as well as manipulation of voice overs and graphics of videos to propagate different agenda .

As a result of this increasing menace, signatories of the International Fact-Checking  Network have petitioned Youtube, the most popular video streaming service to take measures in clamping down on fake content. In an open letter to YouTube’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Susan Wojcicki, IFCN signatories, Dubawa inclusive, noted that the platform has been exploited by spreaders of false information. That action  gives credence to the kind of efforts required in verifying videos by fact-checking organizations. 

Fact-checking videos can be tricky  because they come in different forms; deepfakes, cheapfakes and videos that have characters sharing misinformation  etc. Deepfake videos typically stitch people into videos that they never were part of. They are created with the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Cheapfakes, according to CNN,  are videos that are altered by using advanced editing tools to slow down or speed up, dub new voices onto them or splice up different unrelated scenes together to change context.

Working on video verifications can be a difficult and disconcerting task but it is not something that cannot be done. Several fact-checking organizations including Dubawa continue to verify several fake videos to debunk fake news.  Our recent video fact-check can be found here.

In this piece, we provide you with four useful tips to help you effectively verify videos. Although not exhaustive, these tips have been adopted and recommended by fact-checking organizations as well as global media organizations .

 Pay attention to the details first

Before dissecting or trying to use advanced tools to verify a video, take a critical look at it by paying attention to the natural details. The goal of this is to first check if the same video has been reported in the media already. Secondly, this helps you to pay attention to any details that may have been doctored such as movement of lips,  or any unnatural movements of characters in the video. The idea is to prevent yourself from wasting time and resources. 

Paying attention to the details also means checking the audio. Voice dubbing is one of several ways that people manipulate videos. A good way to do this is to check the lip movement of the characters in the video to know whether they are actually saying exactly what you are hearing.

Check for Metadata

Like all data, images and videos also have metadata. The metadata of videos provide information such as the format, where and when the video was taken. This is a bit complicated but the right skill can help you do that.  While this may be a good way to start, it has some downsides too. In some cases, the metadata of videos shared over some social media platforms may be stripped off. Identifying the metadata works out well if you have the source file. Tools such as ExifTool can help you get the metadata of videos. 

Use trusted online video verification tools

We understand that this is the first step for most people who are trying to verify videos and that’s okay.  Online video verification tools such as Amnesty International’s YouTube Dataviewer or  the  InVid browser extension (a step by step guide on using this will be provided in our next article) have proven to be effective at verifying videos. Unlike Amnesty International’s YouTube Dataviewer  that works with just Youtube videos, the  InVid browser extension works well with videos from YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, allowing one to pull keyframes from videos for further analysis.

Reverse Image Search Can Help

Yes. Reverse image search is a very useful step in verifying videos. Take screenshots from the video in question and run it through reverse image tools such as Google Reverse Image Search  and TinEye. Since videos are composed of frames, reverse image search tools may point you to other places where these videos have been shared. In some cases, you may find altered versions of them, if there is any.

Claim: Ghana’s Communications and Digitalization Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekufu, has asserted that the United Kingdom’s Digital Tax rate is about 10%.

The claim is false. The UK government introduced a 2 percent Digital Service Tax in 2020 but agreed to end it in October 2021.

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The government of Ghana intends to introduce an electronic transaction levy (e-levy) in an attempt to widen the tax net and rope in the informal sector.

The move has, however, been met with stiff opposition by some sections of the Ghanaian public.

The Minority in Parliament has described the proposed tax as regressive and one that will bring “unbearable hardship on Ghanaians.”

On Thursday, January 27, 2022, the Ministry of Information organized a town hall meeting to educate the public about the tax and urge them to accept its implementation.

Addressing the meeting which was held in Koforidua, the Minister for Communication and Digitalization, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful said that the government’s e-levy rate of 1.75% was relatively low.

According to her, in other jurisdictions, particularly the United Kingdom, their tax rate for Digital Services was about 10%. 

“E-levy is being introduced at the lowest rate for any tax in Ghana, comparatively at 1.75%, less than 2%. In other countries, digital taxes are being introduced at the rate of up to 10% and they’re paying. That’s the UK. And we go there and seek loans from them to finance our development. When we are not paying the requisite taxes that we should,” Ursula Owusu stated.

The town hall meeting was streamed live on Facebook and the claim can be found between minutes 28:30 to 29:10.

Her claim has been featured in a news publication on www.myjoyonline.com

Verification

The UK government, in its 2018 budget announced the introduction of a Digital Service Tax (DST).

It was a 2% tax on the revenues of search engines, social media services and online marketplaces which derive value from UK users.

The tax was to take effect in April 2020.

The tax was a response to concerns that multinational tech giants making money in the country were shifting their profits overseas where they could be taxed at lower rates.

Full details of the tax can be found on the UK government’s website.

Subsequently, tech giant, Google, notified advertisers of additional charges following the introduction of the tax.

A January 2021 report by the United States Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, raised concerns about the UK’s Digital Service Tax.

In the report, it was asserted that the three categories of services targeted by the tax were areas where US companies were market leaders.

“The UK DST targets three categories of services where U.S. companies are market leaders: internet search engines, social media services and online marketplaces. It appears unlikely that the DST will cover certain digital services where similar UK or European firms are successful,” page 15 of the report reads.

Following a deal agreed by 136 countries to the effect that large and profitable multinational companies pay a “fair share” of tax in the markets where they do business, the UK announced plans to end the DST.

“We have agreed a way forward on how we transition from our Digital Services Tax to the newly agreed global tax system. This agreement means that our Digital Services Tax is protected as we move to 2023, so its revenue can continue to fund vital public services,” Reuters quotes the UK finance minister, Rishi Sunak, as saying in a statement.

Other European countries with digital taxes

There are 15 European OECD countries that have either planned or implemented taxes on digital services. However, they differ in their structure. The tax rates range from 1.5 percent in Poland to 7.5 percent in both Hungary and Turkey (although Hungary’s tax rate has been reduced temporarily to 0 percent).

Other countries across the world with digital tax rules have been published on Quaderno. 

Conclusion

It is not true that the Digital Service Tax (DST) in the UK is at the rate of about 10% as claimed by the Communications Minister, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful. UK’s DST was introduced at 2% and was targeted at large companies and not individuals as in the case of Ghana. Moreover, the UK has agreed to end the DST.

Claim: President Akufo-Addo says that Ghana’s COVID-19 death rate is one of the lowest in the world.

Verdict: Dubawa has analyzed data from the World Health Organization and Johns Hopkins University and has found the claim by the President to be largely true.

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Ghana’s president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has said that Ghana’s COVID-19 death rate is one of the lowest in the world.

The President said this on Tuesday, January 25, 2022 at the opening of the 73rd Annual New Year School and Conference, organized by the School of Continuing and Distance Education, College of Education, University of Ghana.

“COVID-19 has wreaked havoc on the lives and livelihoods of hundreds and hundreds of millions of people across the globe and it has led to the deaths of some 5 million and 600 thousand people worldwide. Mercifully, God being so good, Ghana has recorded one of the lowest death rates in the world, numbering in total 1,379 so far,” the President said.

The event was streamed live on the University of Ghana YouTube channel and the claim can be found between minutes 1:29:58 to 1:30:30

Verification

The latest COVID-19 update (18th January 2022) from the Ghana Health Service (GHS) quotes the country’s COVID-19 death toll as 1,370. 

To be able to verify the claim by the president Dubawa had to look at the figures and metrics used by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Johns Hopkins University (JHU), two institutions that have been widely considered to be churning out credible global COVID-19 data.

The World Health Organization and Johns Hopkins University have also reported that the country has recorded a total of 1,370 COVID-19 deaths.

The last updates by the WHO and the JHU, at the time of this report, was on January 24, 2022.

The two institutions use the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) as well as the Cumulative death per 100,000 population to measure the severity of the pandemic in a country or region.

According to the WHO, CFR estimates the proportion of deaths among identified confirmed cases as was contained in its August 4, 2020 publication.  

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has also listed eight frequently used measures of mortality.

Out of the eight, the most fit is the cause-specific mortality rate. The cause-specific mortality rate is the mortality rate from a specified cause (in this case COVID-19) for a population. This is measured per 100,000 of the population.

The WHO and JHU both provide the CFR and deaths per 100,000 population in their COVID-19 data.

In several publications that analyzed Africa’s COVID-19 mortality rate, references were made to the continent’s CFR and deaths per 100,000 population, or in some instances deaths per a million of the population.

Ghana’s case-fatality rate is 0.9% whereas the cumulative death per 100,000 population is 4.50, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Out of over 184 countries/areas/territories, whose data is available on JHU, Ghana’s case-fatality rate is only higher than that of 46 other countries/areas/territories.

If the countries/areas/territories whose data is captured by Johns Hopkins University are to be ranked according to their respective case-fatality rate, Ghana will be placed 138th out of 184.

Ghana placing 138 out of 184 countries/areas/territories can largely be accepted as very low.   

Data from the World Health Organization indicates that the country currently has a case-fatality rate of 0.88%.  

Apart from the CFR, Dubawa considered Ghana’s deaths per 100,000 population (Deaths/100K Pop.) as against other countries/areas/territories in verifying the president’s claim

Data from the World Health Organization indicated that Ghana’s Deaths/100K Pop. is 4.41 after recording 1,370 total deaths.

Ghana’s 4.41 Deaths/100K Pop. is only higher than 43 countries/areas/territories out of the 237 captured in WHO’s database.

From JHU’s data, the country’s Deaths/100K Pop. is 4.50 after recording 1,370 total deaths. Ghana’s 4.50 is only higher than that of 22 other countries/areas/territories. 

If the countries whose data is captured by Johns Hopkins University are to be ranked according to their respective deaths/100K pop Ghana will be placed 162nd out of 184 countries/areas/territories.

Source: John Hopkins University (Arranging countries according to Deaths/100K population)

It is worth noting that some countries/areas/territories with a lower death rate per 100K population had recorded no cases of COVID-19.

Some of these are Turkmenistan, Tuvalu and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Burundi’s death per 100K population is currently 0.118 and could be mentioned as the country with the lowest COVID-19 death rate.

The Eastern African country has recorded 37,170 cases and has recorded 14 deaths, according to WHO figures. 

What other data sources are saying

Some websites such as www.worldometers.info, and ourworldindata.org also have data on the COVID-19 situation in various countries.

Ghana’s case fatality rate on www.ourworldindata.org is 0.88% after recording 1,370 cases. The website also indicated that the country’s new COVID-19 deaths per million of population is 0.12.

Worldmeters has the COVID-19 data of 225 countries. It has quoted 1,370 as Ghana’s total death toll. It has indicated that the country’s death per 1million population is 43.

If these 225 countries are ranked according to their deaths per 1 million population, Ghana will be placed 185, using data from Worldmeters.

Global COVID-19 outlook

According to the World Health Organization, globally, as of 5:06 PM CET, 24 January 2022, there have been 349,641,119 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 5,592,266 deaths. As of 24 January 2022, a total of 9,620,105,525 vaccine doses have been administered.

Conclusion

Having analyzed data from the World Health Organization and Johns Hopkins University, Dubawa has rated the claim to be largely true.

This report was produced under the Dubawa Student Fact-checking Project aimed at offering students in tertiary schools aspiring to take up roles in the profession the opportunity to acquire real-world experience through verification and fact-checking. 

Claim: Viral posts on social media claim that Afghan Taliban forces have destroyed mobile phones as part of their enforcement of a ban on phone usage.

The video is from Pakistan and not Afghanistan. The items being destroyed are contraband seized by Pakistani custom officials.

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Videos have emerged online, claiming that Afghanistan Taliban forces are destroying mobile phones.

These posts explain that the destruction is to enforce a ban on the usage of the device, supposedly announced by Taliban fighters who seized power in Afghanistan.

These videos can be found on Facebook (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). The video making the claim has also been shared on Twitter by a verified account.

Some online news portals such as www.scannews24.com have published a story making the claim.

In the circulating videos, officials can be seen stomping tons on electronic devices in an attempt to destroy them.

Verification

To authenticate the claim, Dubawa observed the uniform of the officials in the viral video to give clues as to the country or group they belong to.

After analyzing the uniform of the officials in the video, Dubawa spotted the Pakistan flag patch.

(L-R) Area in red rectangular box capturing Pakistan flag patch and the Pakistan flag patch (Photo credit: Amazon.com)

Again, we detected that a badge beneath the Pakistan flag patch was similar to one that was spotted on the uniform of a Pakistan Customs Officer in a separate Twitter video, posted in September 2021.

Finally, we noticed that a third badge on the uniform of the officials was similar to that of the Pakistan Customs Service in a video posted on Twitter.

(L-R) Area in red showing similarity in the badge of an officer in the viral video and a Pakistan Customs Service officer captured in a separate Twitter video

In a YouTube video, published by a verified channel, WION, a custom official identified as Muhammed Tayyeb, is seen wearing a similar uniform that has the various identifications mentioned above.

Areas in red showing similar images identified in the uniform of officials seen in viral video 

Dubawa identified what could be a longer version of the trending video on YouTube. It was uploaded on December 31, 2021 and the caption was “Pakistan Customs Destruction Ceremony 🇵🇰 || Customs Enforcement & Compliance.”

The officers in the video were wearing the same uniform as those seen in the viral video.

In addition, Dubawa found a 30th December, 2021 news item published on Pakistani-based thenews.com.pk about Pakistan custom officials destroying contraband goods.

The Taliban, since seizing power in Afghanistan, has announced several laws that it says are in line with Sharia, or Islamic law.

An August 2021 publication by US-based Anchorage Daily News (ADN) indicated that the Taliban fighters had outrightly banned the use of smartphones.

However, a January 2022 publication on aninews.in may have brought clarity to the matter when it hinted in its article that the mobile phones of people were being checked by Taliban affiliates in what could be described as a violation of personal privacy.

That notwithstanding, there is no recent report to the effect mobile phones have been banned, seized and destroyed by Taliban forces in Afghanistan.

In the 2022 Human Rights Watch report on Afghanistan confirmed there was no mention of a mobile phone ban. 

Conclusion

The video is rather from Pakistan and not Afghanistan. The items being destroyed are contraband seized by Pakistani custom officials.

Claim: Viral posts on social media claim that China has launched an artificial sun into space

After our independent investigation into this claim, we rate the claim as false.

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Several images and videos have gone viral on social media claiming that China has launched an artificial sun into space.

In these posts, a crowd can be seen at a beach filming with awe and excitement a round, shining, yellowish object ascending into the sky.

One of such videos, which has been posted on Twitter, has attracted over 400k views with over 3,000 users retweeting the post.

Similar posts have also been made on Facebook, with a caption partly reading “China’s space program is breaking records and making history. Just recently, China successfully launched its artificial sun..”

Verification

Recently, China successfully completed the first test of its nuclear fission reactor, known as “Artificial sun.”

The project is dubbed “Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST)”.

A 31st December 2021 publication by China’s official state press agency, Xinhua, reported that the test had set a new world record after its temperature rose about five times hotter than the sun for more than 17 minutes.

Xinhua’s publication indicated that the project was located in the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP).

In several publications about the “artificial sun” test that was analyzed by Dubawa, some of which have been reproduced in this report, none suggested that it was undertaken outdoors.

Meanwhile, Dubawa found a similar video on Chinese microblogging website, Weibo. The only difference from the viral ones was the angle from which the video was taken.

The post was made on December 24 and its caption was in Chinese.

The caption, when translated, reads “The rocket launch site, let us witness the great power of China’s aerospace.”

Screenshot of the December 24 post on Weibo 

Following this lead, Dubawa consulted a 23rd December 2021 publication on www.nasaspaceflight.com.

The publication indicated that China had launched a “pair of satellites called Shiyan-12-01 and Shiyan-12-02 on board a Chang Zheng 7A rocket at 10:12 UTC. The pair of satellites launched to a geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) from the Wenchang Space Launch Center in China.”

This is corroborated by China state-affiliated media, China Fact, on Twitter.

A video, uploaded on YouTube, showing the launch of the rocket, bears similarities with the viral video claiming that the “artificial sun” had been launched into space.

Conclusion

It is not true that China has launched an artificial sun into space. Dubawa has undertaken an independent investigation into the claim and has found it to be false.

This report was produced under the Dubawa Student Fact-checking Project aimed at offering students in tertiary schools aspiring to take up roles in the profession the opportunity to acquire real-world experience through verification and fact-checking. 

Claim 1: News reports claim Ghana is the only country championing mandatory vaccination.

Ghana is not the only country making vaccination mandatory. Reports from Statista, a global sourcing hub, capture several countries including Germany and France to have made COVID-19 vaccination mandatory. 

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The headline of a news report by 3news.com, attributed to the National Communication Officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Sammy Gyamfi, claims Ghana is the only country championing mandatory vaccination. 

“It’s only Ghana that is championing mandatory vaccination – Sammy Gyamfi,” the headline reads.

The report was crafted from an interview Sammy Gyamfi granted to Alfred Ocansey on the Sunrise Show on 3FM, on Wednesday, January 12, 2022.  

The show which was streamed on Facebook has garnered over a thousand views. However, the 3news.com report also published on January 12, 2022, has since been re-published by several websites including, modernghana.com,ghanafeed.com and myinfogh.com. 

Source: 3news

According to Health Minister, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu, the Ministry is doing all it can to ensure that at least 20 million people get vaccinated to reach herd immunity. One of such measures, the Ministry says, is the introduction of a mandatory vaccination policy for travellers, including Ghanaian nationals, entering the country through the Kotoka International Airport. The government also indicated plans to prevent unvaccinated persons from gaining access to public places like stadiums. However, the decision by the ministry has received a lot of backlash from various groups such as the Concerned Ghanaian Doctors and Advocate for Christ Ghana. 

Verification

With the overwhelming interest the story has generated on these platforms, Dubawa found it necessary to verify the facts as claimed in the news report and subject the source of the report to scrutiny as well. 

As a result, we assessed the video streamed on the Facebook page of 3fm to ascertain whether  Sammy Gyamfi made the claim. 

At 30minutes:30 seconds – 33minutes:31 seconds of the Facebook video, part of which we have quoted, we found that 3news.com partially misrepresented the views of the NDC National Communications Officer. 

For the avoidance of doubt, this is what he said: “There is no country in the whole world that has mandated COVID-19 vaccination for its citizens, and it is required that they take it before they allow their citizens to enter their own country. COVID-19 vaccination mandate has been done in Australia, the U.S, and all across the world, it’s been done. But in all those countries, including the U.S, it is not used as the right of entry of citizens into their country. It is only in Ghana we are saying that a country that has less than one percent fatality rate of COVID-19 should be mandated to take the vaccines.”  

Dubawa spoke to Sammy Gyamfi to seek further clarifications on the claim; he said he has been misrepresented by 3news.

“What I said was Ghana is the only country in the world that has announced the kind of compulsory vaccination restrictions that we are currently implementing. What do I mean by that? There are so many countries that have mandated COVID-19 vaccines but none of these countries require their citizens to take a COVID vaccine before entering their own country. So 3news got it wrong when they said I said no country has mandated COVID vaccines. No, that can not be true. Countries have mandated, but it is the type and form of the mandate I am talking about,” he said.

How are other countries handling mandatory vaccination?    

In the United States, citizens do not need proof of vaccines to enter the United States. This is captured by the national public health agency of the United States, Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Countries like France, Italy, and Germany have all made vaccination mandatory. 

Statista is a global sourcing hub, and it has listed the number of countries making vaccination mandatory. Italy, Vatican, Greece, and Russia are among such countries. 

Meanwhile, the Ghana Health Service (GHS) on Wednesday, January 19, 2022 announced at a press briefing that it has revised its international guidelines for Ghanaians entering the country through the Kotoka International Airport (KIA). According to the Director-General of GHS, Dr. Patrick Kumah-Aboagye,  unvaccinated or partially vaccinated Ghanaians and resident foreigners have been exempted from the requirement of full vaccination before traveling to Ghana.” This announcement was captured at (0:00 to 0:47) of a video published by MyJoyonline TV. 

Claim 2: World Health Organization (WHO) does not support compulsory vaccination. 

A policy brief by the World Health Organization indicates that it does not support mandatory vaccination. 

The National Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress  (NDC) further claimed on the same show that the World Health Organisation (WHO) does not support compulsory vaccination. This was made on the (29 minutes 50 secs – 30minutes 19seconds) of the Facebook video posted by 3FM

“The World Health Organization (WHO) has come out to say that they don’t support compulsory vaccination. And they are saying that even if the government wants to adopt compulsory vaccination there should be some extra caveats that must be respected,” Sammy Gyamfi said.

Verification

First, we need to understand what mandatory vaccination is. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), mandatory vaccination compels vaccination by direct or indirect threats of imposing restrictions in cases of non-compliance. 

It explains further that mandatory vaccination policies limit individual choice in non-trivial ways by making vaccination a condition of, for example, attending school or working in particular industries or settings, like health care. 

We researched documents of the WHO and found a policy brief dated 14^th April 2021 titled Covid-19 and mandatory vaccination: Ethical considerations and caveat. It is stipulated on the first page that WHO does not support mandatory vaccination but rather various countries should focus on raising awareness and making the vaccines accessible. 

“Although it should be noted that the World Health Organization (WHO) does not presently support the direction of mandates for COVID-19 vaccination, it is better to work on information campaigns and make vaccines accessible,” the statement said. 

Also, Dubawa found a post published on the Facebook page of the World Health Organization on November 16, 2021, explaining the stand of WHO on mandatory vaccination.

Dr. Michael Ryan is the Executive Director of WHO Health Emergencies Programme and in the post, he said WHO’s stand is to continue with engagements with people to drive the idea of an informed choice.   

“Our position at the WHO is that mandatory vaccination should be considered when the health gain that you are going to get from imposing that is very clear, and you’ve tried all other measures to get people vaccinated. I still believe that the best way is to continue engaging with the people and to continue to drive the idea of an informed choice. But there are circumstances in which the threat to society, the threat to the health system, the threat to the economy is such that governments, having tried all other measures, can make such decisions”.

“This raises issues about human rights, and it is something that the government should consider extremely carefully. And they need to be sure that the benefits of doing this outweighs the risks and that they have everything possible, to address vaccine hesitancy and other issues they feel that they have no other alternative, and it has to have an objective of protecting the individual or protecting the society or the health system. There must be very clear reasons why that action is being taken. And there needs to be a dialogue within government, agencies, and communities around these issues.” Dr. Ryan said.

Conclusion

The claim that Ghana is the only country championing mandatory vaccination is false. However, the World Health Organization (WHO) has indicated that it does not approve of making vaccination mandatory. 

Fact-checkers around the globe have accused video and social media platform, YouTube, of laxity in curbing the spread of misinformation and disinformation.

The fact-checkers, under the aegis of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), said the platform has lent itself as ‘one of the major conduits of online disinformation and misinformation worldwide.’

In an open letter to YouTube’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Susan Wojcicki, IFCN signatories, Dubawa inclusive, noted that the platform has been exploited by spreaders of false information.

“As an international network of fact-checking organisations, we monitor how lies spread online and everyday, we see that YouTube is one of the major conduits of online disinformation and misinformation worldwide. This is a significant concern among our global fact-checking community, “ the letter reads.

“What we do not see is much effort by YouTube to implement policies that address the problem. On the contrary, YouTube is allowing its platform to be weaponized by unscrupulous actors to manipulate and exploit others, and to organize and fundraise themselves. Current measures are proving insufficient” it added.

Following the spike in the spread of misinformation triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, social media platforms have joined the fight against misinformation. Facebook, which has long been in the fight against misinformation, said in 2021 that it removed about 18 million COVID related misinformation published on its platform. 

YouTube has also made efforts to curb the spread of misinformation using its 4Rs principles but IFCN still believes this is not enough as conspiracy groups have in the last year been thriving and collaborating on the platform across borders.

“In the last year we have seen conspiracy groups thriving and collaborating across borders, including an international movement that started in Germany, jumped to Spain and spread through Latin America, all on YouTube. Meanwhile, millions of other users were watching videos in Greek and Arabic that encouraged them to boycott vaccinations or treat their COVID-19 infections with bogus cures. Beyond COVID-19, YouTube videos have been promoting false cures for cancer for years.

“In Brazil, the platform has been used to amplify hate speech against vulnerable groups, reaching tens of thousands of users. Elections are not safe either. In the Philippines, false content with over 2 million views denying human rights abuses and corruption during the Martial law years are being used to burnish the reputation of the late dictator’s son, one of the candidates in the 2022 elections.  

“In Taiwan, the last election was marred by unsubstantiated accusations of fraud. The whole world witnessed the consequences of disinformation when a violent mob assaulted the U.S. Capitol last year. From the eve of the U.S. presidential election to the day after, YouTube videos supporting the “fraud” narrative were watched more than 33 million times.”

The network believes surfacing fact-checked information is more effective than deleting false content as it preserves freedom of expression while acknowledging the need for the spread of the right information. 

Seeing a large proportion of views on YouTube come from its own recommendation algorithm, IFCN says YouTube should make sure it does not actively promote disinformation to its users or recommend content coming from unreliable channels. 

IFCN signatories note that YouTube is avoiding the possibility of doing what has been proven to work. 

“Our experience as fact-checkers together with academic evidence tells us that surfacing fact-checked information is more effective than deleting content. It also preserves freedom of expression while acknowledging the need for additional information to mitigate the risks of harm to life, health, safety and democratic processes”.

Proposing a 4-point solution, the network wants YouTube to commit to meaningful and transparent  efforts about disinformation on its platform, provide context and offer debunks, act against repeat offenders and extend current and future efforts against disinformation and misinformation in languages other than English. 

The network seeking collaboration said it is ‘ready and able to help YouTube…to discuss these matters and find ways forward on a collaboration and look forward to your response to this offer’.