Media Authority Director-General Urges Social Media to Strengthen Nat’l Peace, Dev’t and Solidarity

Social media platforms should be used to strengthen national peace, development, and people’s solidarity, Ethiopian Media Authority Director-General Mohammad Idris said.

The International Fact-Checking Day was observed in Ethiopia for the first time today.

A campaign that aims at alleviating the spread of fake information and hate speech was launched on the occasion.

The event was attended by Ethiopian Media Authority Director-General Mohammed Edris, representatives of the USAID in Ethiopia, and activists.

Mohammed urged social media activists who are influential and with many followers to use their works for good purpose.

He also called on them to use social media platforms to consolidate peace, development and solidarity.

Out of 1 million posts in Amharic, Oromo and Tigrigna languages over the past six months, 50,000 were false, 30,000 inciting violence, 25,000 with hate speech content.

Factify Ethiopia Executive Director, Ashenafi Abebe noted that the social media has continued to create and exacerbate problems.

The increasing spread of false information and hate speech with political, social and economic content have been contributing hugely to conflict and instability in the country, he added.

“The spread of false information and hate speech is increasing,” Ashenafi said, adding that it is necessary to use and implement new data filtering technologies to solve these problems.

Source: Ethiopian News Agency