AFCN trains 22 fact-checking organizations on Full Fact AI tools in Arabic

March 27, 2024

The Arab Fact-Checkers Network (AFCN) from ARIJ organised 3 closed digital training sessions, in which more than 100 fact-checkers from 22 fact-checking organisations/initiatives in 9 Arab countries participated, on the use of Full Fact AI tools in Arabic language.

After months of development and collaboration between AFCN team and the British “Full Fact” Foundation team, with the aim of Arabizing its tools to facilitate and accelerate the process of fact-checking in Arabic, especially in monitoring, matching and identifying claims, AFCN coordinated three separate training for its community as follows:

• Training of managers/editors-in-chief of 22 fact-checking organizations on March 6.
• Training for fact-checkers of fact-checking organisations in Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq and Yemen on March 20.
• Training for fact-checkers of fact-checking organisations in Tunisia, Libya, Morocco, Egypt and Sudan on March 27.

The three workshops were trained by Kate Wilkinson, Senior Production Manager at Full Fact, and David Corney, Senior Data Scientist at Full Fact, and moderated by Saja Mortada, AFCN Manager.

The workshops revolved around a practical live demo on how to use the tools to monitor media organisations and social media accounts, identify verifiable claims, identify previously fact-checked claims and the parties that spread the claims most.

It’s worth noting that FullFact tools are in Arabic language for the first time, and are designed to:

• • Helping identify the most important things to fact-check each day.
  • Making the process of fact-checking as quick as possible.
  • Finding repeats of things we have already fact-checked.

Adnan Al-Mansouri from Saheeh Yemen initiative thanked AFCN for its efforts in providing these tools to Arab fact-checking organisations/initiatives, stressing that “there is no doubt that they will have a great positive impact on our work.”

Laura Rahal, from Fact-O-Meter, Maharat Foundation – Lebanon, said, “These tools are necessary and required in our daily work and monitoring process, and we are waiting for the new features.”

This project is one of ARIJ’s AFCN projects, supported by the Google News Initiative (GNI), and it was officially announced during ARIJ16 annual Forum in Amman in December 2023, and officially launched in a webinar on the occasion of the International Fact-Checking Day, April 2, 2024.