Some Communication officers from public and para-public services in Cameroon are building their capacity on digital communication technics in order to better manage their different social media platforms, scanning and deleting fake news and misinformation.
The workshop in Kribi, organized by the National Agency for Information and Communications Technologies ANTIC seeks to enable government to improve its positioning with a proactive posture in the digital media space as well as its interactions with the populations, enhancing the visibility and effectiveness of public policies.
Fighting Fake News; Need For Government Involvement
The Social media being an open space for different content needs proper scrutiny especially in public structures.
Hackers quickly choose hacking the online service of government agencies because they are often soft targets.
Weakly defended, inadequately monitored, and poorly maintained.
It is in this regard that the National Agency for Information and Communications Technologies ANTIC brought together communication officers of public and parapublic services in Cameroon to Kribi to drill them on effective digital communication technics in order to better manage their different social media platforms, scanning and deleting fake news and misinformation.
Government agencies, officials and accounts are primarily targeted by hackers to spread malicious propaganda which can distort public security.
Efforts made by ANTIC to Combat Social Media Misinformation
With regard ot this form of cybercrime, ANTIC in 2023, detected 987 fake accounts of which 843 representing 85 percent were closed down.
In the same vein, since 2018, the Agency has verified eighty six accounts of public administrations and high-ranking state officials as well as developed a fact-checking platform that would enable the public to verify the authenticity of information.
The Director General of ANTIC Prof. Ebot Enow Enow during the Kribi workshop stated that the proliferation of fake news in Cameroon could be blamed on external factors such as the instantaneous nature of digital communications, low level of subscriber identification, social media platforms hosted outside of the country’s borders, the absence or low online presence of high-ranking officials and institutions equally
contribute to this phenomenon.
“It is imperative for communication officers to develop new communication techniques that allow them to anticipate and counteract the effects of “fake news,” as well as master monitoring tools used to detect false information, images, and videos created by malicious individuals for propaganda campaigns on social media.” Prof Ebot Ebot Enow reiterated.
It is in this light that participants are engaged in mastering these tools to enable them not only to provide real-time insights but also to monitor opinion trends on specific topics across the social media.
Bruno Ndonwie Funwie
