Code for Africa
Founded in October 2012, Code for Africa is a non-governmental organisation and is the continent's largest network of civic technology and data journalism labs, with teams in 22 African countries. Code for Africa builds digital democracy solutions that give citizens unfettered access to factual and actionable information that empowers them to make informed decisions, and which strengthens civic engagement for improved public governance and accountability.
Meltwater Helps Code for Africa to:
Refute Misinformation Quickly
Work Efficiently
Save on Research Costs
Challenge: Providing the Public with Factual and Actionable Information
With a focus on data-driven and evidence-driven investigations, Code for Africa exists to liberate information so that citizens can easily understand this information and take decisive action on the accurate information that they receive.
Different departments exist within Code for Africa and each have a specific role in fact-checking and debunking claims before it goes out to the public. But with the amount of data found in the media, Code for Africa needed a tool that could provide them with access to this data across multiple social media platforms, as well as provide them with the ability to do targeted search queries to hone in on misinformation and refute them with facts.
"The experience with the Meltwater Team has been great, especially with Theo (Sales Manager), who has been really hands on and responsive whenever we need help. The Meltwater Help Desk has also been useful. It doesn't take more than 10 minutes for someone to respond to our query, which is very efficient."
Allan Cheboi, Senior Manager of Investigations, Code for Africa
Solution: Refuting Misinformation with Accurate Data
Time is of the essence when it comes to countering the misinformation that can quickly spread on social media, and Code for Africa recognised that they needed a tool that could help them swiftly collect data to refute and debunk any claims made online.
With the Meltwater mobile app, Code for Africa have the ability to access data on the move while receiving prompts and instant notifications on information to see if it needs to be researched further. This is crucial for ensuring that misinformation gets refuted in a timely manner.
Summary
Meltwater Helps Code for Africa to
1. Refute Misinformation Quickly
"Before, we were working manually and using open source tools to sift through all that data. We realised that this takes long and on a platform like Twitter, where relevant hashtags get used but the content is irrelevant, and where misinformation can spread quickly, with Meltwater, it's easy. You don't need to download all of the data and then manually clean it all up, which takes too much time. That's why we resolved to using Meltwater to solve this problem, and they have met our expectations."
2. Work Efficiently
"We used to work with data that came in a CSV on an Excel spreadsheet. Our data analysts mostly used Python to try and clean the datasets but at the end of the day, that is also too much. especially when you need to counter a particular narrative as quickly as possible. With Meltwater, it's easier to work more efficiently now because you get to do your data collection as soon as you're on the platform, do the report and share it with the public."
3. Save on Research Costs
"We've been able to save on the amount of time and effort that we put into data collection and cleaning, and at the end of the day, saving on the cost of doing the research itself."
