Beware Of Fake News
Fake news has been a great threat to democracy and a difficult news item to sort out from facts on social media. If care is not taken it might cause irreversible damage reasons why population needs to pay attention and verify all details concerning their government and wellbeing.
Cynthia Efopa
Called it whatever name fake news, yellow journalism, propaganda, hoaxes… its meaning does not change. It remains a deliberate concoction and dissemination of false information on the media with the intention to mislead the populace so as to damage an entity or image. Since the outbreak of the crises rocking the predominantly s two English speaking regions of Cameroon; the North West and South west Regions, the propagation of fake news has skyrocketed as some media houses, unscrupulous individuals especially the anti-government actors have resorted to this type of Communication as a way forward to win the hearts of the masses to support of their evil agenda. Cases abound when sensationalism, dishonesty or the outright use of fabricated headlines has been disseminated to increase readers concern and sympathy for one party against the other.
In the management of the said crises, secessionist have gone as far as falsifying official government documents containing information tantamount to disrupting the smooth flow of government affairs and the day to day management of towns. They falsify signatures and stamps of government officials that they use as legal devises as a means to authenticate their fraud documents. They disseminate such fake documents, calling on the population to disrespect government orders or boycott national events. Once was the publication of a false prefectural note of the governor of the North West region lifting a banned on the prescribed curfew passed by government to ensure security in the North West region from 5am to 9pm, their reasons were clear, recommence nocturnal activities that favoured their attacks and killings of the population and security forces. Followed was another fake prefectural note calling on all the residents of Bamenda to evacuate the town for their villages on grounds that the Defence and Security forces were to use the town as a base to lunch attacks, whereas their main intention was to indirectly order occupants of the town to boycott the celebration of the National Day last 20th of May, and a day ago was another fake prefectural order of the Divisional officer of Momo Division informing the governor of the region of the total possession of the area by secessionists and terrorists because the incompetency of the forces on assignment and the insufficient logistics of the forces, this to set confusion in the ranks of military command. Not to mention the fake results of their attacks as portrayed by fake news; where they narrate they have killed hundreds of thousands of soldiers, destroy significant military materials, a military aircraft inclusive and the list go on and on. All these, in a bid to show a day dreaming prowess which is not worthy of patriotic values and objectives. In this environment where fake news is gaining grounds with just the click of button, tele viewers, listeners and internet users must be very vigilant on what they consider to be accurate information.