Author: The Conversation / Source: The Next Web
Can South Africa really hold a general election on the 8th of May in a way that it really represents the views of its people? One might have thought this was an academic question. The Electoral Commission of South Africa is well respected and the legal system is robust. There are certainly enough political parties – around 285 are registered even if most are unlikely to participate in the May elections – for the national and nine provincial legislatures.
But there have been worrying signs about the use of disinformation during previous elections and these need to be heeded.
Google is deploying some of its vast resources to train political parties, journalists and editors how to spot and fight fake news. This is part of a $300 million international initiative it announced in March last year that has three objectives. To “highlight accurate journalism while fighting misinformation, particularly during breaking news events, to “help news sites continue to grow from a business perspective”, and finally to “create new tools to help journalists do their jobs.”
Mich Atagana, communications manager of Google South Africa, says their work will involve protection against attacks on websites of political parties, but will also find ways of preventing the spread of disinformation. The company works through a system of “flaggers”, she explained, who are trained to spot misinformation. If they do, they can contact Google which then takes action.
We can easily de-monetize the website and take away the ranking. We can make sure it does not show up on Google search.
Google will have up to nine staff working on their programme in the run-up to the election. They will be working with sites like Africa Check to allow the public to assess which news is true and which is not.
These initiatives are far from…
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