CHAPTER ONE

GENERA INTRODUCTION

1.0 Introduction

Social media has surpassed traditional news outlets as the primary source of information. According to recent studies, Facebook is one of the most popular news outlets, especially among the younger generation (Newman et al. 2019). Facebook and WhatsApp, on the other hand, are to blame for the spread of false news in the modern world, increasing its visibility through the development of segregated communities or recommendation algorithms. (Zimmer et al. 2019a, 2019b)

There has been a steady growth in the number of users every year since the launch of the internet and subsequent usage of social media in Cameroon in early 2000. Cameroon had 20,000 internet users in December 2000, but by June 2019, that figure had risen to 6,128,422, with Facebook alone accounting for more than half of the total number of internet users (3,473,000) between 2006 and 2019.

According to Besong (2020), Facebook is the most popular social media site in Cameroon, followed by WhatsApp. Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat are also gaining traction in Cameroon’s digital media space, but their growth rates are still far behind those of Facebook and WhatsApp. Cameroon’s social media are more and more used for different purposes, including jobs, culture, networking, enterprise, or schooling.

According to GlobalStats2, Facebook was the most popular social media site in Cameroon between November 2018 and November 2019, with 86.76 percent subscription, while Pinterest (7.55 percent), Instagram (2.17 percent), Twitter (2.13 percent), YouTube (1.33 percent), and LinkedIn (0.01 percent) had slower growth rates.

During the crisis that rocked Cameroon’s two Anglophone Regions from 2016 to 2019, WhatsApp and Facebook became the primary outlets for receiving and distributing information. More depended on these information channels, particularly for the young population, in times of violent crisis from 21 November 2016. In emails, graphics, audio and photographs, social media became overflowing with the alerts that surrounded the crisis.

It didn’t take long for the Cameroonian government to accuse journalists of spreading false and unverified facts, especially on social media, which inflamed and sparked pro-crisis sentiments. Introduction, the context of the study, statement of the issue, research purpose, research problems, reasoning, nature of the study, the significance of the study, and meaning of words are all covered in this chapter.

1.1 Background of the Study

Mobilization and manipulation of information was a feature of history long before contemporary journalism set standards to define news as a genre based on specific honesty laws. Antony encountered Cleopatra in ancient Rome, and his political foe Octavian began a defamation campaign against him with “short, sharp slogans written upon coins in the form of archaic Tweets,” according to an early archive.

The suspect rose to become the first Roman Emperor, and “fake news” allowed Octavian to permanently hack the republican structure. In the nineteenth century, fake news was also distributed in Germany. Mcgillen (2017) Examined the tactics employed by fake news producers at that period and argued that the disinformation could be linked to the creation in the press of false foreign correspondents to address a more and more competitive market (Mcgillen 2017).

The history of false news is divided into four periods by Burkhardt (2017a): pre-printing press period, post-printing press era, social media age, and internet era (Burkhardt 2017a). According to the source, false news in the first period (prior to the printing press) was about information access, where intelligence is also a strength. It uses the precedent of Procopius of Caesarea, who in the sixth century used misleading evidence to ridicule Emperor Justinian (Burkhardt 2017a).

The post-printing press period is symbolized by the Canard in France and the Pasquino in Italy. The radio program “Broadcasting the Barricades,” which broadcasted false news as a joke in 1926, shocking an unaware public, is an example of the mass media age (Burkhardt 2017a). Finally, fake news has spread and been widely circulated in the Twitter era, with the most well-known examples being the “Pizzagate hoax” and the Pope’s endorsement of Donald Trump’s candidacy.

Colley et al., (2021) In India and Nigeria, disinformation has also been blamed for job justice’ and revenge killings. 41 In India, the propagation of false rumors on WhatsApp was blamed for self-administered justice and the deaths of at least 17 people in 2018. 42 About a dozen people have been killed in Nigeria as a result of “fake news” posted on Facebook, according to police. During the peak of Cameroon’s Anglophone crisis in 2016, the dangers posed by fake news, particularly on Facebook and WhatsApp, were so alarming that the government of Cameroon decided to shut down the internet for 93 days in order to combat the spread of fake news and fake videos.

1.2 Statement of Problem

In today’s society, the dissemination of false or misleading news reports on Facebook and WhatsApp appears to be an unstoppable issue. Sharing news on social media has become commonplace not only for users/readers but also for various journalistic organizations looking to generate traffic to their websites by sharing content on social media platforms such as Facebook or WhatsApp.

Disinformation has the potential to cause problems for millions of people in minutes, disrupt election processes, and create unease, disagreements, and hostility among the public. The emergence of social media sites like Facebook and WhatsApp has accelerated the dissemination of fake notices and videos worldwide to make it impossible for people to decrypt the facts from the fake stuff.

According to Rubin, Chen, and Conroy (2016), fake news and fake videos spread extremely quickly, and when one fake news site is taken down, another will quickly take its place. The phenomenon of false news remains of concern in Cameroon as in many other parts of the globe, particularly during pandemics such as the COVI-D 19.

This false information is perpetrated by conventional public and private media (press and audio-visual), social media organizations (WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.), and individuals in and outside the group. Fake news mostly consists of dramatic and divisive titles and can help to spread their emotional vocabulary around the world (Vosoughi et al. 2018).

The belief in fake news, as well as the impact and persuasion it has on the public, can be linked to emotion (Martel et al. 2019). Contents that promote intense emotions such as satisfaction, enthusiasm, or frustration (positive and negative) would be more likely to be expressed (João and Gradim, 2020). Little or no decent work has been done in Cameroon on the impact of disinformation have on society based on the rise of fake news on Facebook and WhatsApp.

1.3 Research questions

1.3.1 General research question

What impact does disinformation have on society based on the rise of fake news on Facebook and WhatsApp?

1.3.2 Specific Research Question

1. What are the challenges faced by society in identifying fake news on Facebook and WhatsApp?
2. What are some of the measures to reduce disinformation based on the rise of fake news on Facebook and WhatsApp?

1.4 Hypothesis of the Study

H0: Disinformation has no significant impact on society based on the rise of fake news on Facebook and WhatsApp.

H1: Disinformation has a significant impact on society based on the rise of fake news on Facebook and WhatsApp.