A dozen countries in Africa including Nigeria, the continent’s biggest economy and democracy, are expected to hold their presidential elections next year, and questions linger on how well social media platforms are prepared to curb mis and dis-information after claims of botched content moderation during Kenya’s polls last August.
Concerns are mounting as it emerges that Twitter has scaled back content moderation after Elon Musk took over and later laid-off more than half the employees, and nearly cleaning out the entire Africa team, a decision that left outsourced moderators out of jobs too. With very limited support to filter or stop spread of propaganda, Africa will likely be a casualty of Twitter’s oft-erratic or slow response to falsehoods — which catalyze violence in times of political polarization.
But this is …
