Participants at the meet up
Commercial motorbike riders in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s political capital have pledged to not only steer clear spread of hate speech and misinformation on social media but actively participate in fighting the vice.
The bikers took the commitment at the end of a specialized meet-up session that at the Etougebe neighbourhood. The session was orgnaised by a cohort 3 member of the Africa Fact-checking Fellowship, Doh Bertrand, #AFFCameroon under defyhatenow – a hate speech mitigation organization.
Doh Bertrand, AFF Fellow
It held Wednesday 16 December 2020 with focus on sensitizing bikers on the dangers of spreading misinformation and hate speech which threatens national cohesion and togetherness.
Speaking shortly after facilitating the session, #AFFCameroon Fellow cum organizer, Doh Bertrand Nua, told reporters that the training primarily aimed at bringing bikers to light on the dangers of misinformation, disinformation and malinformation as well as exchange ideas with them on how the rising rate of hate language in the country could possibly be curbed.
“I decided to choose biker riders because they are a group of the people who easily interact with people from all class in the society in the course of their daily activities," Doh explained.
He added that recent developments in the country has proven that bike riders are increasingly been used or manipulated to spread across messages of hate, division ignorantly.
"They are the most targeted group in every planned protest or strike action in the country...people think they can easily manipulate bikers into violence for their selfish interest," Doh stated.
He said it is on the basis of the developments coupled with an ongoing programme to cojnter hate and fake news in the country under #defyhatenow that he thought it wise to sensitize bikers on the aforementioned topics while going about their daily activities.
For over an hour, the bikers were aside being schooled on the dangers of spreading fake news and misinformation thought techniques of identifying and verifying social media rumours/fake news, social media code of conduct, ways to stop disinformation and malinformation, how to counter hate language, encourage peace within their communities among others.
Cross section of participants
Speaking on behalf of his peers, Ngek James, president of the bike riders hail the initiative and lauded organisers for selecting them.
He and his colleagues promised to extend the knowledge acquired to others within their union and community as well as pleaded for more trainings on how to counter hate
By Pedmia Shatu
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