“AI and Fact-Checking” Discussed at ARIJ’s AFCN Regional Meeting
September 19, 2024
The third regional meeting of the Arab Fact-Checkers Network (AFCN) from ARIJ in 2024 was held on Thursday, September 19 and attended by 21 fact-checkers representing 19 fact-checking organisations/initiatives in addition to 3 freelance fact-checkers from 12 Arab countries. The meeting focused on ways to leverage artificial intelligence technologies in various fact-checking paradigms, addressing the main challenges that AI has presented to the production of misinformation and disinformation.
After a welcome note by meeting moderator ARIJ Communication Manager Samya Ayish, discussions commenced amongst attendees regarding their challenges and achievements during the past few months, which vacillated between new projects and partnerships, and the development of tools and participation in international events. AFCN Manager Saja Mortada then opened the discussion to observations on AFCN and ARIJ’s efforts during 2023 & 2024 in integrating artificial intelligence into organisational work and supporting the network community with AI-empowered tools.
The network already announced during the ARIJ23 Forum the launch of FullFact AI tools in Arabic, which are currently being used to fact-check various news items and information by more than 20 fact-checking organisations/initiatives. The network also fact-checked, through the “AFCN Chatbot” empowered by AI, more than 1,300 images/videos/links in a year and a half in response to requests sent from service utilizers.
As part of the meeting agenda, Hossam El-Wakeel, Editor-in-Chief of Tafnied fact-checking organisations, presented the platform’s vision of the challenges facing fact-checking organisations when using AI, and suggested strategies to overcome them, stressing that the collaborative environment provided by AFCN and represented by its various projects and tools is predicted to soon have significant impact on achieving the desired results.
During the meeting, the AFCN community discussed all the points raised, which were summarised at the end of the meeting into recommendations, the most prominent of which included using AI technologies in the work of fact-checking organisations while integrating AI within the workflow, in addition to adopting an ethical code that transparently explains each platform’s use of these technologies.
Commenting on the most important recommendations emerging from the meeting, Tamara Emad from the “Akhbar Meter-Iraq” platform stressed “the need to focus on developing our capabilities in learning how to employ AI with fact-checking, and informing the audience about the use of AI in fact-checking processes”.
As a result of these recommendations, Atheer Al-Mujahed from “Etrek24” platform confirmed that they will begin implementing the meeting’s recommendations immediately.
It is worth noting that the upcoming regional meeting is the fourth in 2024, and will be held in-person as part of the 17th ARIJ annual forum in Jordan. It was preceded by the first meeting about “How to Improve the Quality of Fact-checking Reports”, and the second meeting about “Sharing Resources Between Fact-Checking Organisations”, in addition to this meeting, as part of a series of regional meetings that AFCN initiated in 2022 aimed at creating a strong Arab fact-checking community.
