A Meedan partner in Jordan has launched an emergency tipline to get critical information to Turkey and Syria earthquake victims. The partner, Fatabyyano, debuted a smart multi-platform fact-checking assistant called Kinan— an automated messaging solution powered by Meedan’s Check.
Kinan aims to bring AI to the fact-checking newsroom and will allow Fatabyyano’s audience to request fact-checks from the journalists on team. Social media users can reach out to Kinan and ask questions using Facebook Messenger, Instagram and Twitter.
“With over one million followers on Fatabyyano’s social media accounts and millions in audience reach, we are pleased to have a Check tipline adding to Fatbayyano’s impressive work, including direct communication with audiences requesting trusted information,” said Ed Bice, CEO of Meedan.
Launched in 2014, Fatabayyano verifies online content in Arabic and debunks misinformation spreading on social media and messaging apps. The organization is an IFCN signatory with coverage spanning over 19 countries across North Africa and Western Asia.
The latest collaboration between Meedan and Fatabyyano is an important milestone: this is the first Check tipline made for an Arabic-speaking audience.
“We are pleased to partner with Meedan as part of our fact-checking efforts in the Middle East and North Africa region. With the increasing prevalence of misinformation on social media platforms, our dedication lies in curbing the spread of false news in Arabic and ensuring that accurate information is easily accessible,” said Dr. Moath Althaher, CEO of Fatabyyano.
Fatabyyano’s team not only debunks false claims related to current events, but also targets myths and misconceptions that are widespread among their audience, including information related to natural disasters and diseases.
Meedan’s Check automates aspects of the fact-checking work with the help of natural language processing and machine learning techniques. The tool facilitates communication between fact-checkers and large audiences, especially during elections and moments of crisis.
For more information or to launch a tipline of your own, email hello@meedan to get in touch with our team.
Footnotes
- Online conversations are heavily influenced by news coverage, like the 2022 Supreme Court decision on abortion. The relationship is less clear between big breaking news and specific increases in online misinformation.
- The tweets analyzed were a random sample qualitatively coded as “misinformation” or “not misinformation” by two qualitative coders trained in public health and internet studies.
- This method used Twitter’s historical search API
- The peak was a significant outlier compared to days before it using Grubbs' test for outliers for Chemical Abortion (p<0.2 for the decision; p<0.003 for the leak) and Herbal Abortion (p<0.001 for the decision and leak).
- All our searches were case insensitive and could match substrings; so, “revers” matches “reverse”, “reversal”, etc.
