Category: Disinformation

A Non-Governmental Organisation in Nigeria, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), has regularly released figures since 2018, which it says are evidence of an ongoing genocide against Christians by jihadists and jihadist herdsmen in the country. But an analysis of statistics from reliable sources shows that these claims are inaccurate. …

Read more “An Assessment Of Claims On ‘Christian Genocide’ In Nigeria”

A Nigerian Twitter user, My Deen My Swag, has shared some misleading pictures to defend the death penalty for blasphemy in some states in Northern Nigeria where Sharia (Islamic canonical law) applies. “Whether they steal food or phone, they don’t deserve to be burnt to dead. They burn people even for stealing N50 to dead …

Read more “Misleading Photos Used To Justify Blasphemy Laws”

HumAngle has emailed SANS Technology Institute for clarification but has yet to get a response. Claim: An email purportedly from SANS Technology Institute, whose screenshot has recently circulated on social media, states that Nigeria has been listed as a “state sponsor of terrorism” by the United States Department of State. The name of the email’s recipient …

Read more “Nigeria is Not a ‘State Sponsor of Terrorism’ and has Never Been”

In no other way has the battle between merchants of doctrine and empirical scientists been fiercer than is evident presently over steps by each to paint the novel coronavirus in lurid colours. Surprisingly, religious clerics from the Muslim and Christian fold are aligning with terrorist groups like Boko Haram in painting the position of science …

Read more “COVID-19: Muslim, Christian Clerics Aligning with Terror Groups to Sell Misinformation to Followers”

A 20-year-old hoax suggesting that staring at female breasts has the effect of promoting longevity in men has been circulated by the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, the government-controlled news wire service. Other media houses also fell for the age-long hoax. Crediting NAN, news platforms including Premium Times and TheCable reported the “study” on Tuesday. Vanguard Newspaper, DailyPost, and many other web platforms have likewise shared the report …

Read more “No, Study Does Not Show Staring at Women’s Breasts Prolongs Lifespan”

Pictures from the general elections conducted four years ago and 2015 xenophobic attacks in South Africa have been recently shared in support of claims about violence in Kogi and Bayelsa gubernatorial elections, The ICIR has observed. A report by The Nigerian News, a “citizen’s online publishing and broadcasting platform”, shared on Tuesday made use of a suspicious …

Read more “Photos from 2015 Polls, Xenophobic Attacks Shared in Connection to Kogi, Bayelsa Elections”

Pictures can mislead in several ways: when they contain false information, are doctored to misinform or are employed in a false context. As part of a series scrutinising online posts by prominent social media users, The ICIR used publicly available tools to verify pictures shared on Twitter by Lauretta Onochie, Personal Assistant on Social Media …

Read more “The Many Social Media Lies of Lauretta Onochie, President Buhari’s Aide”

In August 2019 many news outlets reported that the world’s largest rainforest, the Amazon, was burning at an alarming rate. The National Institute for Space Research (INPE) in Brazil, the country home to more than two-thirds of the forest, recorded over 70,000 fires across the region in 2019.  Many people have shared images of the fires and of animals killed in …

Read more “Photos of Burnt Animals in Popular Tweet aren’t From Fires in Amazon”

Fact-checking no doubt has become an important area of journalism globally and is increasingly taking centre stage across many newsrooms. In Nigeria, not only are major news agencies releasing fact-checks on a regular basis, establishing fact-check desks and empowering their reporters with advanced tools for research and verification, organisations, such as Africa Check and Dubawa, …

Read more “Int’l Fact-Checking Day: How Public Figures React to Fact-checks in Nigeria and Why We Should Bother”