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Understanding the Media You Use – Part 1

By Maxine Danso  

There is a phenomenon of each social medium having a seemingly distinct group of audiences that is worth highlighting in relation to media and information literacy. If you are averagely active on Twitter, you may have seen some tweets that suggest how Twitter users relate differently to content (albeit uncharitable, in this case) on the platform. 

In observing the reaction to cross-posted photos on Twitter and Instagram, some users have acknowledged an unfriendly reception to celebrities’ photos on Twitter contrasting the warm reception of Instagram users to those same photos. In a Ghanaian context, a user had this to say about a Ghanaian singer, “Funny how Wendy Shay gets all the nice comments on Instagram but negative comments on Twitter. Most people on Twitter are just bitter, and a bunch of cyberbullies and it’s not even funny…” In a Nigerian context, a user remarked a similar occurrence with a Nigerian actor, “Lol Twitter people are not nice. Tobi Bakre posted this same picture on Instagram and his comment section is filled with love and light. But no, you people here just have to show yourselves.” In a totally different context on a similar subject, a user gave this explanation, “Not to say I don’t hit the heart button to a nice picture, but for me, Twitter is about engagement, Instagram is about the likes…” 

Though this user’s personal reason may not be a general justification for some people’s bluntness about photos on Twitter, it further opens up the discussion on social media and its seeming distinct audiences and their responses to content to be situated in the discourse of media and information literacy. Beyond consuming information (through text, photo, video, or audio), identifying the functionality of the medium, its major distinct features, how it enables users to communicate and how users consequently use them is paramount. This is critical, more so because failing to understand a medium’s purpose and functionality can transform the information on those channels to manifest as a kind of information disorder. 

What happened with a TikTok video originating from Kenya which Dubawa had to provide context and clarity to some Nigerian audiences was an example of this. In July 2021, a Kenyan TikTok satirical video found its way on other social media platforms and was believed by a number of the Nigerian community on WhatsApp and Instagram to be a desperate feminist begging for a husband.

Peace Lois Mbae, a Kenyan TikToker who at the time the video was produced identified as a content creator on satire, commentary, and comedy, produced a 1-minute 45-second TikTok skit where she is seen crying and denouncing her previous feminist ideologies, pleading for a husband, and stating that she would serve and obey him as a wife should. In the comment section of the video on TikTok, a fair number of users understood the video to be satire, and the content producer is also seen confirming to audiences that it was satirical. But this intent appears to have been missed when the video surfaced on other channels. 

An article on Pocket-Lint explains the functionality of TikTok. It states that users can create videos of themselves by lip-syncing, dancing, or acting skits. The features on TikTok also enable video editing and customization, where users have access to different songs, filters, sound bites; are able to duet with others by replying to a video, creating a split-screen and reactions, or adding their own sounds and lip-syncing to videos of others. If these basic features are not known, there is a tendency to misinterpret a number of videos originating from TikTok. The need for media and information literacy can not be overemphasized. 

Because we are presented with a host of content on different information outlets, asking basic yet critical questions such as “What is the purpose of this medium I am on, and what typically happens here? With the present medium I am using, do I find this information out of place on the platform? Who is sharing this information? What are the facts available in comparison to this new information I am receiving? How do I react to such information given the facts available about the information being received?” can be very helpful.

Answering such questions goes a long way to processing the varied information found online; how to receive them, how to engage with them, and how to consequently apply them…   to be continued…

Recent Fact-checks 

• Akufo-Addo falsely claims that Ghana’s economic growth rate in 2016 was the country’s lowest in over 20 years

As part of his tour in the Greater Accra Region, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was interviewed on an Accra-based radio station, Peace FM on Thursday October 21, 2021. At the interview, the president mentioned that the country’s economic growth rate, recorded in 2016, was its lowest in 20 years. However, this was found to be false as available data from the IMF, World Bank and Bank of Ghana, 2014 and 2015 recorded much lower economic growth rates. 

• Claim that uncompleted hotel is owned by Jean Mensah, Electoral Commission Chairperson, false

A Facebook user shared an image of an uncompleted building and claimed the said building is an uncompleted hotel in Ghana belonging to the Electoral Commission Chairperson, Jean Mensah. This allegation is completely false. Investigations conducted with Google Reverse Image Search and a Google Map Search revealed the building to be in Montenegro, formerly known as Yugoslavia. Also, the hotel belongs to the government of Montenegro but was sold on contract to a Serbian-Russian investor, Nega Tours, for  construction in 2002. However, the investor failed to fulfill the contract agreement and had the sale of the Hotel terminated by the Government in January 2016.

• Did Yaw Osafo Maafo declare support for Alan Kyeremanten to lead NPP into the 2024 polls?

A post being widely shared on various social media platforms including WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter alleged that Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo has declared support for Trade Minister, Alan Kyerematen, to lead the New Patriotic Party into the 2024 elections. While none of the posts indicate a source and all show the same circulated screenshot with typographical errors, Osafo Maafo has denied making such a statement.

More Fact-Checks 

1. No scientific evidence to support claim ‘too much sex causes blindness’
2. Viral image purported to be Pokuase overhead false
3. Wrong context: Viral TikTok video not about side chic issues neither is the location of the incident Nigeria
4. Ecobank Ghana is not giving out cash to random customers on its 40th anniversary. It is a scam

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For feedback, suggestions, and claims you want fact-checked, feel free to contact us: 

Website: ghana.dubawa.org

Twitter: @dubawaGH

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Whatsapp: +233 542 818 189

You know when gatecrashers attend a party uninvited, they may be there to have fun and no one usually gets harmed, inconvenienced much. Not so with malicious Zoom bombing. 

Zoom bombing happens when uninvited participants appear in Zoom meetings and try to interrupt the meeting. This often happens when meeting links or logins are made public, permitting entry to anyone who bothers to click on that link or use those login details.

Unlike the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic, when people were forced to migrate to online applications like Zoom to assume some semblance of in-person interaction, which in turn resulted in many security breaches like Zoom bombing, many security measures have now been put in place to curb the disruption of online meetings when using the Zoom application. This was necessary as more and more people sought to exploit the application and cause disorder in people’s meetings.

Here are some suggested ways to avoid and fight mischievous intrusions:

First, ensure to avoid sharing meeting links with the public. Share only with people who are meant to attend and request that they refrain from sharing such notice with others.

How to prevent Zoom-Bombing into online-sessions

• Ensure your Zoom app is up to date at all times. This will provide you with all new security options. 
• Add registration for participants to input email addresses that are linked to Zoom.
• Don’t use your Personal Meeting ID(PMI) for meetings. The PMI is basically an unending meeting room that you can use for meetings. Anyone with this meeting ID or link can join and leave at any time. It is important that you generate new meeting IDs for specific meetings and totally avoid using your PMI for general meetings. 
• It is advisable to protect your meetings with a password.
• In some cases, you may want to enable the waiting room and opt to disable the ‘Join Before Host‘ option to prevent people from getting into such meetings before the host is available. This will help the host to control who comes into the meeting.

So it’s too late, your session has started and the bombing attacks have commenced. What do you do? 

• Available to meeting hosts are the in-meeting security controls. These controls allow the host to change participants’ permissions. For instance, the host can choose at a go, to suspend all participants’ activities like in-meeting chats, renaming, muting or unmuting, hiding or showing profile pictures, etc. The host through this means can also lock the meeting to prevent new people from joining. These controls can be accessed by clicking on the security icon in the Zoom applications control. 

• Disable screen sharing for participants. This will prevent people from taking over displays during sessions. This can be activated during meetings that enable the in-meeting controls. Ensure bombers cannot hijack your display by selecting Who can share? > Only Host from the meeting options. 
• Remove participants from the meeting by sending them to the waiting room or completely removing them. This will only be effective if the waiting room is enabled or when the meeting has been locked. To send to the waiting room, click on the person’s video thumbnail or hover over their name in the participants’ list, click on the “More” menu button, and select “Put in Waiting Room.”

Zoom has released an extensive security manual titled, “Best Practices for Securing Your Zoom Meetings. Everything you need to keep your video meetings safe and secure,” which provides detailed instructions for the application users to ensure optimal security.

President Nana Akufo-Addo says that the country’s economic growth rate in 2016 was its lowest in over 20 years.

Ghana’s 2016 economic growth rate was an improvement of what was recorded in 2014 and 2015, according to figures from the Bank of Ghana, the World Bank and the IMF.

Full Text

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo says that the country’s economic growth rate, recorded in 2016, was its lowest in 20 years.

He was speaking at Accra-based Peace FM as part of his tour in the Greater Accra Region on Thursday October 21, 2021.

“When I came in 2017, the last year of the predecessor government, the rate of growth of the economy, 3.4 percent – the lowest in over 20 years. In our first year, the rate of growth was over 8 per cent; the second year, 7 per cent; the third year, 6 point something. On average. The growth rate of the economy between 2017 and 2020 on the onset of COVID was 7 per cent. The 7 per cent economic growth that made us one of the fastest-growing economies in the world,” the President said.

The President’s interview was streamed live on UTV Ghana Online’s Youtube Channel.

He said this between minute 21:00 and 22:00 of the video (Youtube) which can also be found on Facebook.

President Akufo-Addo’s interview has garnered over 15,000 views

Verification

To verify the claim by President Akufo-Addo, we will refer to Ghana’s economic growth rate figures from the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF), Bank of Ghana, and the Ministry of Finance.

We first put up the figures given by President Akufo-Addo against the ones from the four aforementioned institutions. 

Year	Akufo-Addo	World Bank	IMF	Bank of Ghana	Finance Ministry
2016	3.4%	3.37%	3.4%	3.4%	3.6% in 2017 budget but 3.7% in 2018 Mid-year budget
2017	8%	8.1%	8.1%	8.1%	8.5%
2018	7%	6.2%	6.2%	6.3%	6.3%
2019	6%	6.5%	6.5%	N/A	6.5%

However, the matter under contention is his statement that the growth rate of the last year of the previous government is the country’s lowest in over 20 years (2000-2020).

To ascertain the truth or otherwise of this claim, we refer to figures from the World Bank, IMF, Bank of Ghana and the Finance Ministry from 2000 to 2020.

Year	World Bank	IMF	Bank of Ghana	Min. of Finance
2000	3.7%	3.6%	3.7%	3.7%
2001	4%	3.8%	4.2%	4.2%
2002	4.5%	4.6%	4.5%	4.5%
2003	5.2%	5.1%	5.2%	5.2%
2004	5.6%	5.4%	5.6%	5.8%
2005	5.9%	6.2%	5.9%	5.8% (Half of year)
2006	6.4%	5.8%	6.4%	6.2% (as of September 2006)
2007	4.347%	4.1%	4.3%	6.3%
2008	9.15%	9.0%	9.1%	6.2%
2009	4.844%	5.7%	4.8%	4.7% as of September 2009 but 4.0 quoted in 2012 budget
2010	7.9%	7.8%	7.9%	5.9% (as of September) but 7.7 quoted in 2012 budget
2011	14.047%	13.9%	14.0%	13.6% in 2012 budget but 14.4% quoted in 2013 budget
2012	9.293%	8.4%	9.30%	7.1%
2013	7.313%	7.2%	7.4%	7.4%
2014	2.856%	2.9%	2.9%	6.9% as at June 2014
2015	2.121%	2.1%	2.2%	4.1%
2016	3.373%	3.4%	3.4%	3.6% in 2017 budget but 3.7% in 2018 Mid-year budget
2017	8.129%	8.1%	8.1%	8.5%
2018	6.2%	6.2%	6.3%	6.3%
2019	6.508%	6.5%	N/A	6.5%
2020	0.414%	0.4%	N/A	0.4%

Evidently, Ghana’s 3.4 percent economic growth recorded in 2016 was higher than what was recorded in 2015 and 2014, highlighted in yellow above.

Conclusion

It is not true that Ghana’s economic rate in 2016 is the country’s lowest in over 20 years. The economic growth rate for 2016 is higher than what was recorded in 2014 and 2015, according to figures from the Bank of Ghana, the World Bank and the IMF.

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 news reports claim a Ghanaian counselor had said women can go “blind” if they have too much sex with their partner. 

There is no scientific evidence to prove that ‘too much sex’ can lead to blindness. An Optometrist from the Permeff Eye Care, Dr. Emefa Titiati, and scientific studies, however, indicate an excessive use of drugs like viagra during sex can lead to blindness. 

Full Text

A viral news report has claimed that too much sex can make women go blind.

The report with the headline “A woman can go “blind” if she has too much sex” published by Pulse Ghana cited one Counselor D.Y Donkor to have made that statement on an Accra-based radio station Angel FM.

Several news portals including adomonline.com, ghbase.com, and ghspalsh.com have published the article with the same headline. 

On the Facebook page of Pulse Ghana, it has generated over 1,000 likes and over 500 comments at the time this report was filed. 

However, the headline did not sit well with the public and this has generated a lot of public debate, leaving people in confusion about the truth or otherwise of the statement. 

“Scientific explanation needed na I can’t think far…Ryde this be where we catch…Ah well, let me start frequenting the eye clinic,” a Facebook user Comfort Zhang Ya Yelipoie said.

Another user Nharhar Effirim also said, “Counselors are now taking the position of doctors; you will never hear such nonsense in the Western countries.” 

Verification

The news reports cited Angel FM as their source of the claim. Dubawa searched and found the video of the counselor making the statement on YouTube. 

“When sex takes the center stage of dating and courtship, it blinds the ladies and doesn’t help them to study the men to know whether they are good for them,” he said in the interview on Angel FM (8 minutes 25 seconds to 8 minutes 50 seconds of the video). “…for women, the more the sex, the more the go blind.”

After assessing the video it appears the word “blind” was used metaphorically in the context to help explain dating and courtship. 

Dubawa has reached out to the counsellor and will update this report with his comments.

Can frequent sex lead to blindness? 

According to an Optometrist from the Permeff Eye Care, Dr. Emefa Titiati, there is no scientific evidence to prove that having sex constantly can lead to loss of sight. Excessive use of drugs like viagra during sex can however lead to blindness.

According to Doctor Emefa Titiati, the use of Viagra during sex can lead to a condition called nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy which leads to blindness. 

“With having sex and getting blind, there is no scientific justification to it. So, there is a condition called nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy. It is a condition that causes blindness. One of the effects of using viagra is that it can cause that condition and that condition can cause blindness. So, it is not direct sex that leads to the blindness but it is when the person uses viagra that put one at the risk of getting blind,” Dr. Titiati told Dubawa. 

An academic medical centre of Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, attributes non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) to the loss of blood flow to the optic nerve (which is the cable that connects the eye to the brain). This condition typically causes sudden vision loss in one eye, without any pain.

Moreover, a research study, Ocular Side Effects of Sildenafil That Persist Beyond 24 h—A Case Series, found that participants studied after using Viagra without prescription had issues with their sights which persisted for more than 24 hours.   

“17 healthy men were monitored after they took sildenafil (Viagra) for the first time without prescriptions. And within 48 hours of taking the drug, diagnostic tests indicated that out of the 17 patients, nine had photophobia, 13 had disrupted color perception, nine had impaired visual acuity, three had deficiencies in stereopsis, six had disrupted contrast sensitivity, and eight had abnormally dilated pupils all about their sight.”

Another scientific research by Dr. Cüneyt Karaarslan, an Eye Disease Specialist, concludes that although frequent sex cannot lead to loss of sight, the constant use of high doses of sildenafil under the brand name viagra, a medication used to treat erectile dysfunction, can lead to loss of sight. 

Conclusion 

There is no scientific evidence that frequent sex can lead to blindness. However, an Optometrist from the Permeff Eye Care, Emefa Titiati, says excessive use of drugs like Viagra during sex can lead to blindness. 

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: Facebook user suggests an image of a huge uncompleted hotel is in Ghana Accra free zones and belongs to Jean Mensah, the EC Chairperson.

Findings show the image is a government owned yet-to-be completed hotel in Montenegro, not in Ghana.

Full Text

A Facebook user by name Marfo Passco shared an image of an uncompleted building and claimed the said building is an uncompleted hotel belonging to the Electoral Commission Chairperson, Jean Mensah.

The post is captioned,

“After rigging the election in favour of Nana Addo, take a look at what she is building with poor taxpayers money given to her by Nana Addo.”

In the post, Marfo Passco also asked, 

“Where did Jean Mensah get the money to build this huge hotel in Ghana Accra free Zones? We are demanding the source of money used in financing the uncompleted hotel. This is the property of the Electoral Commissioner…” 

This post has attracted reactions, particularly on the Facebook group by name Friends of Sammy Gyamfi.

Verification 

Dubawa conducted an image reverse search and found out that the picture has been uploaded on alamy website,  www.alamy.com, an online diverse photo stock collection  and captioned “facade of unfinished and abandoned huge hotel in Montenegro” on 2nd October, 2019.

Another search conducted on Google Earth revealed that the building is the Hotel AS and is located in the Adriatic Coast in the area of Perazic Do, near the Spa town of Petrovac (Montenegro).

Moreover, an article titled “The Abandoned Hotel AS in Montenegro resembles the Titanic”  published by waytomonye.com  on 25th March 2018, confirms the existence of the building in Montenegro. 

The article  further stated that the hotel belongs to the government of Montenegro, formerly known as Yugoslavia but was sold on contract to a Serbian-Russian investor, Nega Tours, for the construction of the Hotel  in 2002. However, the investor failed to fulfill the contract agreement and had the sale of the Hotel terminated by the Government in January 2016.

According to the report, the Country’s Attorney filed a criminal case against six people including the owner of Nega Tours, its deputies and others on suspicion that they provided the government of Montenegro false guarantees of 3 million Euros. 

The Montenegro Ministry of Sustainable Development and Tourism through the Director of the Directorate for Tourism Development and Standards, Olivere Brajovic, mentioned in a statement dated 10th March, 2016 the filing of criminal charges against six persons in connection with the construction of Hotel AS.

In the course of fact checking this claim, Dubawa made attempts to reach the  EC chairperson for her response but that has not been successful. This report will therefore be updated if her response is provided.  

Conclusion

The circulated image of the huge uncompleted hotel stated to be in Accra free Zones of Ghana and belonging to Jean Mensah, the Electoral Commissioner, is false.

Claim: Social media users are quoting Yaw Osafo-Maafo, who is a leading member of the New Patriotic Party, as declaring support for Alan Kyerematen, the current Trade Minister, to lead the party into the 2024 polls.

Mr. Osafo-Maafo has denied making such a statement. 

Full Text

A post being widely shared on various social media platforms including WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter says that Mr. Yaw Osafo-Maafo has declared support for Trade Minister, Alan Kyerematen, to lead the New Patriotic Party into the 2024 elections.

The quote, being attributed to Mr. Osafo-Maafo, noted that the New Patriotic Party is mainly supported by members of the Akan speaking community, hence the need for Alan Kyerematen to lead the party.

A screenshot of the quote allegedly made by Mr. Osaafo-Maafo 

Verification

A search on Facebook using a portion of the quote does not lead to any written text by any user of the platform even though the circulating photo suggests that it has been posted on the social media platform.

The results that come up on Facebook are only photos that capture the quote.

On Twitter, however, the quote has been typed and a photo of Mr. Osafo-Maafo, the same as used in the Facebook post, is attached.

Interestingly, the posts found on Twitter and the ones that were posted on Facebook in photo format all committed the same punctuation and capitalization errors – raising a red flag.

Some of the twitter posts can be found here, here, and here.

Furthermore, these users have failed to indicate the source of the post, therefore, questioning its credibility.

Also, no leading news portal in the country has published a story featuring Mr. Osafo-Maafo on the said matter.

Mr. Osaafo-Maafo is a high-profile member of the New Patriotic Party and currently the Special Advisor to President Akufo-Addo.

It raises questions that a person of such calibre will make a statement and it will be missed by leading news agencies in the country.

Meanwhile, the Office of the Senior Presidential Advisor has issued a public statement denying the claim. 

“With reference to the said circulation, we emphasise that Hon. Yaw Osafo-Maafo has never uttered such “irresponsible, misguided, tribalistic and ethnocentric” statements either in public or private directly or indirectly and has no cause to do so,” part of the disclaimer reads.

Conclusion

It is not true that Hon. Yaw Osafo-Maafo has declared support for Alan Kyerematen. The viral social media posts suggesting that he had done so are without an identifiable source, raising concerns about its credibility. 

Moreover, Hon. Yaw Osafo-Maafo has denied the claims.

Claim: A Facebook user claim an image of a raised canal built across roads intersection with waterway is Ghana’s Pokuase overhead 

Findings show it is Belgium sart canal bridge and not pokuase overhead. 

Full Text

A Facebook user shared an image of a raised canal built across roads  intersection surrounded by green fields with a waterway and claimed it is that of the pokuase overhead in Accra, Ghana.

The photo captioned ” Accra POKUASE overhead is one of most beautiful place in Africa, God bless Ghana leaders”

This post which was published on the 29th September, 2021  has been shared  on both facebook and WhatsApp and has generated a lot of comments and  debate.

Verification

Dubawa conducted a google image reverse search and found out that the  photo was uploaded as a video (0.24 seconds) on YouTube by one Rizwan Hussain  on 13th March, 2017 and captioned  “pont- canal du star, Belgium.” 

Another search conducted on Google earth revealed that the purported picture is the Sart Canal Bridge in Belgium at La Louviere 

Further checks revealed that this same picture of the Sart Canal Bridge in Belgium was posted by a Facebook user on May 24, 2021 and claimed to be an Aerial photo of Kafubu River in Zambia and was fact checked by AFP Fact Check to be that of the Belgium Sart Canal Bridge.

The bridge is said to have been started in October 1998 with the first stage launched in February 2000 and full work completed in 2002 and cost €29m according to greisch.com, Europe engineering and architectural website. 

According to Bureau Greisch, one of Europe’s Engineering firms, the bridge is 498m long and 46m wide. It carries the Canal du centre over the Theuriau du sart valley  at Houdeng – Aimeries and over a major road intersection ( N55 and N535) at the entrance to La Loviere. 

Pokuase Interchange 

The pokuase interchange is the first four-tier interchange in Ghana. Its  first phase was commissioned in November 2020 by President Akufo Addo.

Pictures of the Pokuase interchange is seen below:

Conclusion

The viral image shared on both Facebook and WhatsApp and claimed to be Pokuase overhead is false. 

Over 600,000 global breast cancer deaths recorded in 2020 while diagnosed cases trump 2 million

By Roselena Ahiable  

Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer and the leading cause of death in women globally. It is a disease that results from overgrown cells in the breast. The disease occurs in both men and women; however, women are at a higher risk of getting breast cancer in comparison to men. 

Cancer of the breast can start in different areas of the breast like the lobules, the ducts, and in some instances the tissue in between. There are two main types of breast cancer namely invasive (Ductal Carcinoma in situ and Lobular carcinoma in situ) and non-invasive (Invasive ductal carcinoma, invasive lobular carcinoma, Paget’s disease of the nipple, Inflammatory breast cancer, Phyllodes tumors of the breast, Locally advanced breast cancer, metastatic breast cancer).

The subtypes of breast cancer are hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, HER2 positive breast cancer and triple-negative breast cancer.

Global outlook

A report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) released on March 26, 2021,  indicates that in the year 2020, 2.3 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer and 685,000 deaths were recorded globally. 

At the end of that same year, a total of 7.8 million women had been diagnosed with breast cancer in the past five (5) years.

Records for incidence of breast cancer in men, on the other hand, is about 0.5-1% according to the WHO.

Africa

In Africa, breast cancer is the most diagnosed form of cancer in African women, representing the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. 

In Nigeria, 22.7% of new breast cancer cases were recorded across all sexes and ages in 2020. 

Breast cancer accounted for 18.7% of new cancer cases in both men and women in Ghana for the year 2020. 

Liberia also recorded 528 new cases from both sexes, accounting for 14.9% of new cancer cases. 

In the Gambia and Sierra Leone, 8.1% and 20.9% breast cancer cases were recorded among all new cancer cases in 2020, respectively.

Click here to continue reading 

Recent Fact-checks 

• Viral video showing a mysterious coconut with blood in it fictional it is not real blood

A TikTok video showing a man cutting into a coconut with a resulting flow of blood from it has gone viral on social media. In the video, the man was heard saying “I plucked one coconut on the tree, I peeled it and what I saw in the coconut, the content in the coconut was amazing, surprising. I cut and what I was is blood!!!. Yes, blood. Real blood”. However, he admitted it was fake when Dubawa contacted him. He often makes such videos on TikTok to showcase his creativity, even though his videos do not state that intent.   

• WhatsApp has not made changes to its group privacy settings following #WhatsAppDown

A viral WhatsApp message claims there has been a change in WhatsApp’s group privacy settings after the external system breakdown. Dubawa contacted the WhatsApp Support Team and was informed that indeed, anyone can be added to a group if the option “Everyone” is selected instead of “My Contacts,” with the latter ensuring that the individual is added only to groups created by people in their personal contact list only. However, this is not a new setting as it was available prior to the global WhatsApp outage. WhatsApp has not made any new changes or updates to the already existing group privacy settings. All users are free to change the group settings to their preferred choice.

More Fact-Checks and Explainers 

1. Drinking coffee with lemon will not cause melting of body fat
2. False. This is not a video of a camel spitting out its tongue to cool it down
3. ’1teacher, 1 laptop claims and counterclaims: Here is what you need to know
4. Call for volunteers

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Share our fact checks and help people access quality information.

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For feedback, suggestions, and claims you want fact-checked, feel free to contact us: 

Website: ghana.dubawa.org

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Whatsapp: +233 542 818 189

Claim: Coconut tree in Teshie has borne fruit with blood in it – Tiktok User.

The video creator, Emmanuel Afful, told Dubawa that it is not real blood and that it was a display of his artistic and creative skills for the social media app. He, however, does not tag his videos as such.

Full Text

A video showing a man cutting into a coconut with a resulting flow of blood from it has gone viral on social media. 

The TikTok User, @flybebe1981, stated in text in the video,

“#mysterious coconut tree discovered in Ghana greater Accra teshie…”

In the video, he says,

“Amazing coconut tree in the world. I spotted this tree in Ghana, Greater Accra. Teshie to be precise. I plucked one coconut on the tree, I peeled it and what I saw in the coconut, the content in the coconut was amazing, surprising. I cut and what I was is blood!!!. Yes, blood. Real blood. It was surprising. It was amazing. I have never seen such a thing in my life before. This is amazing.”

The video has been watched 272.6k times and gathered over 9000 likes and has been shared over 2000 times. It has also been seen being circulated on WhatsApp and on YouTube. 

Verification

Dubawa called the number indicated in the video and spoke to Emmanuel Afful, creator of the video. 

“It is not real. I created it. Which one? Is it the egg one or the coconut one? Seriously, it is not real, I created it. If I give you the details, you will be tempted to do that…I can give you how I did the blood but apart from that, the details of how I managed to put in the blood, I can’t. You know normally if you want to create blood, to be real, use egg, this our normal egg, and food colour. If you mix them together, you will get the thickness of blood. And the colour, you have to mix the colour well to look like the colour, but how I manage to put it in, no. I won’t tell you. It’s dangerous,” Afful told us.

He suggested that as part of his act on Tik Tok, he creates such content. 

However, he does not tag his contents as fictional.

Another one of his other videos that has been watched 215.2k times and shows what he claims to be a “tree yielding egg.”

The tree he claims bears eggs as fruits, complete with seeds in the egg.

A look at his TikTok page shows more of such incredible content.

One of his more recent videos shows him crack a blue egg that contains some bloody mush. In this particular video, however, he cautions viewers with a text, written in red at the right corner of the video, that

“Viewers discretion. This video is not real but rather creative.” 

Conclusion

The bloody coconut video is fake, as is most of the content created by TikTok user Flybebe1981. It is mainly for showing off his creativity.

DUBAWA WEEK  FOR TRUTH (NOVEMBER 2021)

Are you passionate about making an impact? Do you want to help in the personal development of young adults in the various Senior High and Tertiary schools in the country? 

If yes, then we need you. This is your chance to leave a mark.

Dubawa, a fact-checking and verification project of the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ), is looking for volunteers to join a nationwide outreach to educate students/youth corp members on media and information literacy, basic fact-checking and critical thinking skills!

Eligibility and Expectation

Volunteers must

• Be resident in Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and The Gambia. 
• Be willing to undergo an online training if selected
• Be willing to visit a senior high school (preferably their alma mater) or a tertiary institution in their resident country to sensitize and educate students on media and information literacy and fact-checking as a means of combating fake news. 
• Will be available for the ‘‘week for truth’’ in the second week of November.
• Must understand the use of social media.
• Must have good communication skills.

Click on this form to sign up.

Registration will end at midnight on 17th of October 2021. 

Selected volunteers will be notified and trained.