In an era where misinformation and disinformation spread rapidly across the globe, the need for reliable fact-checking services has never been greater. Recognizing this critical issue, Ugandan journalist Muhumuza Adolph has taken a significant step to bridge the information gap for non-English speaking populations in East Africa to developed a Swahili and Luganda fact-checking hub, FactJaja.
According to NITA,National Information Technology Authority Uganda, Luganda is one of the most widely spoken language across the country with over 20 million people practising it. while Swahili is East African most spoken language with over 100 million making it Continent’s widely spoken language. According to Adolph, Information Technology has predominately focused on mainstream languages such as English, French, Italian, and Spanish creating massive gap to billions of people who doesn’t understand the language. Says Adolph.
Uganda’s report 2023 by NITA, approximately 25% of the population in Uganda has access to smartphones. With a population estimated at around 47 million people, this translates to roughly 11.75 million individuals who use smartphones while big potion of users are young people (18-24 years) making information verification crucial.
Over the past few years, Technology Companies have been making great transition in technology through Ai algorithms without less verification limitation, Race for the Ai has been criticised by many across the world while others identifies machine learning as a shortcut to solve so many challenges. Adolph added.
Whatsapp Messanger recently added Meta AI long their chat option, recently I interacted with a bot to test how it encounters deep-fake and doe’s seem have prioritisation for that challenge.
According to meta Ai, Labelling of Ai generated deepfake images is one of the step taken in fighting disinformation and I disagree with this as there is option of cropping it off.
creating a such dangerous tool in the middle of disinformation crisis makes fact-checkers and information verification organisation hard. 1creating a such dangerous tool in the middle of disinformation crisis makes fact-checkers and information verification organisation hard.
Meta Ai generated Image
Factjaja will be working along Media Organisations, fact-checkers, Civil Societies, Government Institutions and Technology companies to tackle the dangerous of Disinformation especially among vulnerable communities.
