General McInerney, [12.04.21 11:24]

[ Photo ]

I thought April fool's was only one day long?

https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/establishing-twitter-s-presence-in-africa.html

https://t.me/GeneralMcInerney/474

[note telegram channel name is General McInerney but not verified]

Establishing Twitter's presence in Africa

By Kayvon Beykpour and Uche Adegbite

Monday, 12 April 2021

Twitter’s mission is to serve the public conversation, and it’s essential, for the world and for Twitter, to increase the number of people who feel comfortable participating in it. To do this, we need to make it easier for everyone to join in and provide more relevant experiences for people across the world.

Today, in line with our growth strategy, we’re excited to announce that we are now actively building a team in Ghana. To truly serve the public conversation, we must be more immersed in the rich and vibrant communities that drive the conversations taking place every day across the African continent.

We are looking for specialists to join several teams including product, design, engineering, marketing and communications. Full details on current job openings can be found on the Twitter Careers site. Aligned with our existing WFH policies, we look forward to welcoming and onboarding our new team members remotely so that we can make an immediate impact while we explore the opportunity to open an office in Ghana in the future.

Why Ghana?

As a champion for democracy, Ghana is a supporter of free speech, online freedom, and the Open Internet, of which Twitter is also an advocate. Furthermore, Ghana’s recent appointment to host The Secretariat of the African Continental Free Trade Area aligns with our overarching goal to establish a presence in the region that will support our efforts to improve and tailor our service across Africa.

Whenever we enter new markets, we work hard to ensure that we are not just investing in the talent that we hire, but also investing in local communities and the social fabric that supports them. We have already laid foundations through partnerships with Amref Health Africa in Kenya, Afrochella in Ghana, Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI) in Nigeria, and The HackLab Foundation in Ghana. As part of our long-term commitment to the region, we’ll continue to explore compelling ways we can use the positive power of Twitter to strengthen our communities through employee engagement, platform activation, and corporate giving.

We still have much to learn but we are excited to listen, learn, and engage. Public conversation is essential to solving problems, building shared ideas, and pushing us all forward together. We can’t wait for the next step on that journey.

Kayvon Beykpour

‎@kayvz‎ verified

Product Lead, Twitter and Co-Founder, Periscope

Uche Adegbite

@enuhau

Director, Product Management, Global Markets

Only on Twitter

@Twitter

#OnlyOnTwitter

>>45352

Twitter African partnerships to serve the public conversation

"Twitter’s mission is to serve the public conversation..."

Whenever we enter new markets, we work hard to ensure that we are not just investing in the talent that we hire, but also investing in local communities and the social fabric that supports them. We have already laid foundations through partnerships with Amref Health Africa in Kenya, Afrochella in Ghana, Mentally Aware Nigeria Initiative (MANI) in Nigeria, and The HackLab Foundation in Ghana. As part of our long-term commitment to the region, we’ll continue to explore compelling ways we can use the positive power of Twitter to strengthen our communities through employee engagement, platform activation, and corporate giving.

https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/establishing-twitter-s-presence-in-africa.html

https://amref.org/

https://afrochella.com/

https://www.mhinnovation.net/organisations/mentally-aware-nigeria-initiative

https://hacklabfoundation.org/

https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2021/establishing-twitter-s-presence-in-africa.html

>>45352, >>45353

Twitter partnership

Center for Countering Digital Hate report: 65 percent of Facebook and Twitter posts analysed originated from the same 12 sources whom the researchers called the ‘Disinformation dozen’

newsroom.amref.org

Kenyans need ‘immunization’ against Fake News - Newsroom

by Amref Health Africa

Kenyans need ‘immunization’ against Fake News

April 13, 2021

In war, truth is always an early casualty. This has never been truer than in the current war against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Right from the start, the World Health Organization (WHO) coined the word, ‘infodemic’ as truth was the first casualty as misinformation and disinformation competed for space with facts. And in many instances, truth lost and country decisions from USA to Tanzania and others in between, were guided by myths. In this situation, the virus was the winner.

For the avoidance of doubt, while malformation refers to false and misleading information, disinformation, originally used in Russia as a tool for propaganda, is misinformation with intent to influence public opinion.

In an August 2020 survey by Partnership for Evidence-Based Response to COVID-19 (PERC), over 50 percent of Kenyan participants agreed that foreigners were trying to test a COVID-19 vaccine on them. This reflects how people process information with skepticism especially where we have low levels of trust between and within countries.

More recently, we had many questions raised resulting in eroded trust in COVID-19 vaccines from disinformation created by the Kenya Catholic Doctors Association who made unsupported claims casting doubts on the credibility of the vaccine.

In the COVID-19 public health response measures of wearing masks, social distancing and hand washing, misinformation and disinformation have had a significantly negative result by allowing unchecked spread of the virus resulting in avoidable sickness and death.

As we now enter the next phase of our fight against the pandemic, vaccination, it seems to me that we need first to be ‘immunized’ against misinformation and disinformation.

As we prepared for the scientific breakthroughs of COVID-19 vaccines with hope and optimism, one thing was already worrying many public health experts and the Director of Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr John Nkengasong, captured it aptly: ‘Trust I build before its needed not when its needed’.

Indeed, though the PERC surveys show that over two thirds of Kenyans are willing to receive the vaccines, the one third who are not ready must worry us. This is because vaccination is less of an individual effort, and more of a population level effort where each needs to be safe for all to be safe.

As demonstrated by other vaccination campaigns like Small Pox and Polio, trust and acceptance is important in driving success in ending human suffering. It is trust that drives participation and creates beneficial public mobilization.

This trust is the ‘immunization’ we need against misinformation and disinformation. Whereas the circulation of misinformation and disinformation may look like an innocuous ‘virus’, a report published recently by the non-profit Center for Countering Digital Hate from February 1 to mid-March 2021, showed that about 65 percent of Facebook and Twitter posts analysed originated from the same 12 sources whom the researchers called the ‘Disinformation dozen’. The misinformation and disinformation is not an ‘innocuous virus’ but one deliberated seeded to harm.

This is why we must identify the ‘misinformation and disinformation virus’ its sources, signs and symptoms and develop ‘immunization’ against it. This ‘immunization’ effort will need national, community and individual level interventions.

For one, the state has a duty to inform in a transparent and trusted manner. This doesn’t mean that the state is the owner of all information. By convening trusted sources like researchers, health workers, national and international organizations, the state can provide the ‘first dose’ of this immunization. To be successful, this ‘dose’ will need to be independently and transparently done and must be dissociated from procurement activities. The same people approving procurements are best not the same people discussing the science – in audit, it’s the ‘arm’s length’ transaction.

The ‘second dose’ of this ‘immunization, is the community and individual ownership.

This level is critical in rebuilding trust and is best achieved by allowing community engagement and empowerment through local leaders including religious leaders supported by the scientific community to provide factual information and support individuals to navigate misinformation and disinformation.

By following these two doses strictly and religiously, we can ‘immunize ourselves’ against misinformation and disinformation avoid unnecessary death and suffering.

Dr Githinji Gitahi is Global CEO and Director General, Amref Health Africa.

https://newsroom.amref.org/blog/2021/04/kenyans-need-immunization-against-fake-news/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kenyans-need-immunization-against-fake-news

Article first published on The Standard, Kenya

>>45352, >>45353

Twitter partnership

Afrochella Festival: Aligns business to United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals

The Afrochella Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing developmental opportunities to underserved residents of the festival’s host countries. The Foundation’s influence will provide underrepresented creatives basic opportunities to refine their professional experience.

By connecting the diaspora with the continent, we hope to establish a platform for foundational exchange of mutually beneficial progress and support. As our festival footprint grows in Africa and our audiences establish connections with our host cities, we have a unique opportunity to make these connections effect change within the communities we are active in.

Afrochella, as a Ghanaian registered business, understands the importance of ensuring our company values align with the developmental goals of our host country, Ghana. As such, we strategically structured our business to align with United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

The Afrochella Foundation program targets rising creatives, underserved young adults and community initiatives geared toward development and improvement. Our aim is to build ecosystems that amplify the effort to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals within our host cities.

Every year Afrochella has supported a local charity in an effort to raise awareness and funds for service projects in Ghana. In the past 3 years we have donated upwards of $15,000 in gifts and cash. Culture Management Group also donates 5% of its net profits to the Afrochella Scholarship Fund. The Afrochella Scholarship Fund supports educational centers curating the creative talents of Ghanaian youth.

https://afrochella.com/giveback