Fact-checking Tunisian and Algerian Elections: What Has the Coalition Achieved?

The Arab Fact-Checkers Network (AFCN), led by ARIJ, and Africa Check with the support of the Google News Initiative (GNI), launched a Coalition for Fact-Checking the Tunisian and Algerian Elections 2024 with the participation of four fact-checking organisations: Tunifact, Tafnied, Algeria Check and BNCheck.

The four organisations confronted mis/disinformation that spread around the Tunisian (October 6th) and Algerian (September 7th) elections, through monitoring and debunking false claims, and raising awareness among the general public. The coalition also delivered  workshops for journalists in newsrooms, preparing them for encountering election-related mis/disinformation in Tunisia and Algeria.

The coalition succeeded during the coverage period, in producing more than 100 fact-checking reports, including 14 collaborative reports between the four organisations. These reports debunked a variety of false claims which either supported  or criticised candidates, and clarified false assumptions about the election results at their home country or abroad.  The reports also dealt with safety-related information that had the potential to influence voters’ will. 

The coalition also published a set of awareness content which dealt with various forms of disinformation during the election period, as well as guides on fact-checking methodologies and tools. 

Tafnied, a participating organisation in this coalition, carried out a preliminary analysis on the mis/disinformation trends that accompanied the Tunisian elections from early August to early October 2024. The claims monitored and debunked by the coalition fell under  six main categories, with claims emerging from public accounting for more than half.

In the period before the elections, the coalition held an in-person workshop targeting Algerian journalists from several media organisations such as El Moudjahid, El Akhbariya, and Jeune Indépendant, with the latter  inviting the Algeria Check team to their newsroom to provide additional training for the newspaper’s team. Another three virtual workshops on fact-checking during elections were also organised, presented by Tafnied, Tunifact and BNCheck, for journalists in Tunisia from several media organisations and radios that specifically cover the elections.

Fact-checking organisations in Tunisia emphasised the role of the coalition in facilitating the process of fact-checking information on candidates, praising the importance of cooperation within the coalition that unified efforts and provided a protective umbrella through joint publication and joint training for journalists. Yasmine Dakhli, Editor-in-Chief of Tunifact, said, “The project succeeded in the first experience of an election fact-checking coalition in the Arab world. Despite all the challenges, the coalition enabled us to fact-check sensitive information during a sensitive period and produced reports that had significant impact on the public without putting ourselves at risk”.

Walid Kouini, founder of Algeria Check, added that the coalition “has made a real impact in gaining qualitative expertise for Algeria Check in fact-checking political information, benefiting from the experiences of other organisations within the coalition, and by providing advanced technologies from AFCN such as Full Fact and Chatbot to support daily fact-checking. In addition, the coalition has made an impact on journalists and media professionals in  some newsrooms in Algeria, by training them in order to cover the elections accurately”.