Join us as Alphonce Shiundu, Africa Check’s Kenya editor, reflects on the challenges of fighting misinformation during elections. Discover the strategies used to verify political claims, the importance of transparent fact-checking and how to build public resilience to false narratives through pre-bunking. Drawing on his experience of the 2017 and 2022 elections, Alphonce offers invaluable advice on navigating the information overload and recognising the telltale signs of disinformation. Whether you're a voter, journalist, or simply a concerned citizen, this episode is a must-listen for staying informed and skeptical in the face of election misinformation.

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Featured guests

Alphonce Shiundu, Kenya editor, Africa Check

Resources

South Africa Election Information Hub

South Africa is preparing for crucial national elections at the end of May 2024, thirty years since it became a constitutional democracy. To help cut through the noise, Africa Check has brought together all its election resources in one place.

A guide to prebunking: a promising way to inoculate against misinformation

Debunks don’t reach as many people as misinformation, and they don’t spread nearly as quickly. If they do reach us, they generally struggle to erase the misinformation from our debates or our brains. Even when we’ve been told that the misinformation is false, research suggests it continues to influence our thinking.

So it helps to take a page from medicine: Prevention, not cure, may be a more effective way to combat misinformation. Understanding how prebunks work (and how they don’t) is essential for reporters, fact-checkers, policy makers and platforms.

Special thanks to

This episode was produced by the Africa Check team: Khumo Motaung, Tshiamo Mononyane, and Laura Kapelari. Your show host for this episode is Thipe Maelane, also from Africa Check.

Africa Check, the continent’s first independent fact-checking organisation, helps you separate fact from fiction.