Saturday 26th October, 2019
By
Gifty Amofa/Eric Appah Marfo, GNA
Accra, Oct. 26, GNA – Madam Adaora Ikenze,
Facebook Anglophone West African representative, has said Africa has the lowest
rate of reporting false information posted on Facebook globally.
She said though they knew the information
posted- especially images and videos were false, they would not report them to
the appropriate quarters but still forward them to others.
Madam Ikenze was contributing to a panel
discussion on elections and cybersecurity to round-up the week-long celebration
of National Cyber Security Awareness Month-2019.
The five-day programme was organised by the
Ministry of Communications and attended by school children, heads of
departments, internet service providers, among others.
She urged users of social media to report
such cases for them to be down-graded or removed for further investigations.
The Facebook’s representative’s said that
many of the false information are used to defame the hard won reputation of
others; or cause fear and panic among the populace.
She said reporting to Facebook was anonymous
and that there is no need for informants to panic as their identity would be
protected adding that there are systems in place to block false information.
Madam Ikenze called for intensive social
media or digital literacy efforts and asked users to have a sense of
responsibility and observe simple measures to protect their account and
identity.
Mr Emmanuel K. Dogbevi, Managing Editor of
Ghana Business News, called on journalists to crosscheck their facts before
they publish any news item.
GNA
