Meta, the parent body of Facebook, has pulled down violence-inciting posts related to the Bawku conflict during an upsurge in 2023.
GhanaFact collected data over a seven-month duration culminating in the publication of a report titled Hundreds dead in Bawku chieftaincy conflict, and social media is partly to blame! on October 9, 2024.
The report detailed the role of social media in inciting violence in Bawku, a Municipality in the Upper East Region, which has been grappling with an intractable chieftaincy conflict over the years.
Doxxing, threats against journalists, combat language, and parading of dead victims as human trophies, among other tactics were deployed by the warring factions (Kusasis and Mamprusis) on Facebook.
Between February and August 2023, GhanaFact populated over 100 hateful and violent inciting posts on Facebook from supporters of either faction and systematically documented how these posts reflect happenings such as the killing of people in and around the Bawku enclave and beyond.
GhanaFact can confirm that Facebook, in response to our complaint on the platform’s complicity in amplifying the violence, has so far taken down 29 out of the 107 inciting posts documented.
GhanaFact also monitored how the conflict escalated to Accra after a TikTok user used the platform to attack an opponent which led to a fight.
Aside from Facebook, GhanaFact also collected data on how TikTok was actively used to stoke the conflict and also as a tool to threaten peace actors.
While GhanaFact commends Facebook for the current move, we recommend that the company expedite action and also engage skilled professionals to keenly monitor the space to prevent future incidents.
The big question remains about how the social media platforms, especially Facebook’s algorithm missed all the hate speech on its platform and allowed the conflict to thrive on their platform.
By Gifty Tracy Aminu
