In Africa, Facebook wants to take responsibility for content with regard to the hundreds of millions of users on the continent. Encouraging freedom of expression while strengthening the security of the user community is the goal set by the web giant.
A few months ago, Facebook announced the upcoming creation of a content oversight board, an independent global body that will facilitate joint reflection on regulatory decisions.
To combat fake news, which continues to plague the web, Facebook has announced the launch of its fact-checking program in several local African languages. In collaboration with the Africa Check website, the social media giant has chosen to integrate content published in local languages into its project to combat false information circulating on its platform, which has already been rolled out in several African countries for content in French and English.
This program, which will include content published in Yoruba, Swahili, and Wolof, will make it possible to assess the authenticity and veracity of information published on the news feed and ultimately improve the quality of content published locally on the social network.
At the same time, Facebook has announced the creation of a space on its social network entirely dedicated to news. To feed this new space with content, the American giant wants to go beyond algorithms and rely on professional journalists to select some of the content published. However, these journalists will not produce or edit content.