How Africa’s War on Disinformation Can Save Democracies Everywhere - eviltoast

This year marks 30 years since the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when a Hutu-majority government and a privately owned radio station with close ties to the government colluded to murder 800,000 people.

The year 1994 may seem recent, but for a continent as young as Africa (where the median age is 19), it’s more like a distant past.

Suppose this had happened today, in the age of the algorithm. How much more chaos and murder would ensue if doctored images and deepfakes were proliferating on social media rather than radio, and radicalizing even more of the public? None of this is beyond reach, and countries including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, and Niger are at risk—owing to their confluence of ethno-religious tensions, political instability, and the presence of foreign adversaries.

AfricaCheck.org

  • Bassman1805@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    While I agree with the sentiment here, this is pretty 1-dimensional. For one, US support of Ukraine actually has little to do with democracy and everything to do with national sovereignty. One nation with imperial ambitions invaded another nation without pretense, US provides aid to stave off that invasion.

    Hypocritical given US history of imperialism? Sure. But it’s NOT imperialism under the mask of democracy.

    Similar arguments apply to various points on this list. Supporting NATO is about maintaining a military alliance against common enemies, not spreading democracy.