Amb. Kalilou Traore, Ambassador of Côte d’Ivoire to Nigeria, has stressed the need for collective measures aimed at strengthening fights against fake news to end the spread in Africa.
Traore gave the advice on Friday in Abuja during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), to dispel social media claim about military coup in the country to be false.
He described the social media report that claimed President Alassane Ouattara was either captured, killed in a coup d’etat or fled the country as unfounded and fake.
According to the envoy, lot of things reported on social media about Côte d’Ivoire on the subject matter were false, adding everything said was simply fake news.
Toure said, “When this information was circulating on the fake news the country was very quiet, even the government was at the council meeting and many activities are ongoing.
“We are preparing for General Assembly of African Development Bank that will start next week and tomorrow, we have one of the biggest fair-exhibitions that starts May 23, with guests coming everywhere.
“So that is to tell you that things are going normally, but the biggest problem is that the threat of fake news is for all of us, all countries in Africa.
“We have to find regulatory solution, for providing our governments support to bolster capacity to stop that, also for African citizen to know that we are in the era of fake news.
“We need to change our behaviour, when we receive this kind of information from social media platform, we need to verify the authenticity, before circulating such fake news and before doing anything.”
He reiterated the need for people to always verify information to ascertain the truth through checking or calling on people, as well as institutions of communication in the host country.
“I was happy to see that Nigerian media did not circulate such information. They have been very professional and I want to commend what they have done against such fake news threats.
“I think many countries are working on this new situation, in Côte d’Ivoire we started the fight against fake news since last year.
“We have a big campaign for sensitisation of the population who are the first destination and the consumer of this kind of information, so they should be the ones to be sensitised and to know what to do.
“We have started and we are still continuing this. At the same time, we are also reviewing our national regulatory policies to be more effective against this kind of activities.
“We are also working at technical level on proper ways to track fake news and stop them. So, lots of work is ongoing but it should not be only one country,” he stated.
He said such approach required involvement of many countries, because fake news could spread from other countries, saying the purported social media reported was in English, yet most Ivorians don’t understand English.
He disclosed that the false report did not circulate in Côte d’Ivoire but widely in Nigeria, saying many of our friends and contacts called us, but in Côte d’Ivoire they were not aware.
Today, it is Côte d’Ivoire which is one of the most integrated countries in Africa based on the openness of the country and population from other countries.
“Based on citizens living in Côte d’Ivoire and cooperation with many countries, including Nigeria in terms of defence and security, trade, agriculture among others, we have to strengthen cooperation to achieve targets.
“This threat of fake news is something new, we also need to strengthen our cooperation in on how we can better share information, track network criminals and share our experiences.
“This is something we need to strengthen our cooperation in working towards it for Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria and other countries. The issue is not to take a lead.
“What is important is that we need to come together at the moment where we can all work collectively and target the same objective to fight fake news,” the envoy said. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)