Integrity Institute Releases Misinformation Amplification Analysis for Nigerian Election
Integrity Institute Finds Facebook and Twitter Continue to Amplify Elections Misinformation in Nigeria
New York, NY – The Integrity Institute releases its misinformation amplification analysis for Nigeria before Africa’s largest democracy by population heads to the polls on February 25, 2023. As part of the Elections Integrity Program, the Integrity Institute developed a novel indicator called the Misinformation Amplification Factor (MAF) to measure the extent to which social media platforms amplify misinformation. By tracking the average MAF, the Integrity Institute provides one of the few independent metrics to compare across major social media platforms. Previously applied only to data from the United States, the latest report is the first analysis done on data from outside the United States and kicks off the Institute’s global elections integrity work leading up to 2024, a year of democratic elections globally.
We find that Facebook and Twitter continue to amplify misinformation around the Nigerian election, with Twitter’s amplification being significantly larger than Facebook’s. Our estimated MAFs for Facebook and Twitter in Nigeria are largely comparable with what we found around the 2022 midterm elections in the United States. However, the widespread use of WhatsApp, and the lack of our ability to estimate a misinformation amplification factor for this platform, is a significant gap in Nigeria. Many fact checks there are focused on misinformation going viral through WhatsApp messages.
Integrity Institute chief research officer and co-founder Jeff Allen, who developed the misinformation amplification analysis methodology, said, “Tracking the impact platforms are having on elections internationally is crucial. As every integrity worker knows, the risks posed by platforms only get larger outside of the United States due to a generally lower level of dedicated resources from social media companies.”
The Integrity Institute is a think tank powered by a community of integrity professionals: tech workers with experience in integrity roles — roles dedicated to fixing harms to people and society within social internet platforms. The Institute cultivates a thriving community of 150+ integrity professionals with experience on trust and safety, product, integrity, and quality teams across 30+ different platforms – including Facebook, YouTube, Google, TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Quora, and Clubhouse. Institute members have observed, and often helped build, the architecture of the social internet, and they are committed to sharing their expertise so that the social internet can help individuals, societies, and democracies thrive.
The full report can be found here. We thank the Knight Foundation for financially supporting our Elections Integrity Program.
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Contact: Jeff Allen, hello@integrityinstitute.org
