How fake news does real harm Stephanie Busari
I want to tell you a story about a girl.
But I can’t tell you her real name.
So let’s just call her Hadiza.
Hadiza is 20.
She’s shy,
but she has a beautiful smile
that lights up her face.
But she’s in constant pain.
And she will likely be on medication
for the rest of her life.
Do you want to know why?
Hadiza is a Chibok girl,
and on April 14, 2014, she was kidnapped
by Boko Haram terrorists.
She managed to escape, though,
by jumping off the truck
that was carrying the girls.
But when she landed,
she broke both her legs,
and she had to crawl on her tummy
to hide in the bushes.
She told me she was terrified
that Boko Haram would come back for her.
She was one of 57 girls who would escape
by jumping off trucks that day.
This story, quite rightly, caused ripples
around the world.
People like Michelle Obama,
Malala and others
lent their voices in protest,
and at about the same time –
I was living in London at the time –
I was sent from London to Abuja
to cover the World Economic Forum
that Nigeria was hosting
for the first time.
But when we arrived, it was clear
that there was only one story in town.
We put the government under pressure.
We asked tough questions
about what they were doing
to bring these girls back.
Understandably,
they weren’t too happy
with our line of questioning,
and let’s just say we received
our fair share of “alternative facts.”
(Laughter)
Influential Nigerians
were telling us at the time
that we were naïve,
we didn’t understand
the political situation in Nigeria.
But they also told us
that the story of the Chibok girls
was a hoax.
Sadly, this hoax narrative has persisted,
and there are still people
in Nigeria today
who believe that the Chibok girls
were never kidnapped.
Yet I was talking to people like these –
devastated parents,
who told us that on the day
Boko Haram kidnapped their daughters,
they ran into the Sambisa Forest
after the trucks carrying their daughters.
They were armed with machetes,
but they were forced to turn back
because Boko Haram had guns.
For two years, inevitably,
the news agenda moved on,
and for two years,
we didn’t hear much
about the Chibok girls.
Everyone presumed they were dead.
But in April last year,
I was able to obtain this video.
This is a still from the video
that Boko Haram filmed as a proof of life,
and through a source,
I obtained this video.
But before I could publish it,
I had to travel
to the northeast of Nigeria
to talk to the parents, to verify it.
I didn’t have to wait
too long for confirmation.
One of the mothers,
when she watched the video, told me
that if she could have reached
into the laptop
and pulled our her child from the laptop,
she would have done so.
For those of you who are parents,
like myself, in the audience,
you can only imagine the anguish
that that mother felt.
This video would go on to kick-start
negotiation talks with Boko Haram.
And a Nigerian senator told me
that because of this video
they entered into those talks,
because they had long presumed
that the Chibok girls were dead.
Twenty-one girls were freed
in October last year.
Sadly, nearly 200 of them
still remain missing.
I must confess that I have not been
a dispassionate observer
covering this story.
I am furious when I think
about the wasted opportunities
to rescue these girls.
I am furious when I think about
what the parents have told me,
that if these were daughters
of the rich and the powerful,
they would have been found much earlier.
And I am furious
that the hoax narrative,
I firmly believe,
caused a delay;
it was part of the reason
for the delay in their return.
This illustrates to me
the deadly danger of fake news.
So what can we do about it?
There are some very smart people,
smart engineers at Google and Facebook,
who are trying to use technology
to stop the spread of fake news.
But beyond that, I think
everybody here – you and I –
we have a role to play in that.
We are the ones who share the content.
We are the ones who share
the stories online.
In this day and age, we’re all publishers,
and we have responsibility.
In my job as a journalist,
I check, I verify.
I trust my gut, but I ask tough questions.
Why is this person telling me this story?
What do they have to gain
by sharing this information?
Do they have a hidden agenda?
I really believe that we must all start
to ask tougher questions
of information that we discover online.
Research shows that some of us
don’t even read beyond headlines
before we share stories.
Who here has done that?
I know I have.
But what if
we stopped taking information
that we discover at face value?
What if we stop to think
about the consequence
of the information that we pass on
and its potential to incite
violence or hatred?
What if we stop to think
about the real-life consequences
of the information that we share?
Thank you very much for listening.
(Applause)