May 30, 2022

On May 30, 2022 the Arab Fact-Checkers Network (AFCN) led by ARIJ hosted Samya Ayish, the Communication manager at ARIJ, to discuss how fact-checkers can enhance their social media presence, with 200 participants live via Zoom and more than 950 viewers in the first day on Facebook in the forth webinar of the SA7 project.

The SA7 project is part of the regional program “Qarib”, which is implemented by the French Agency for Media Development (CFI) and funded by the French Agency for Development (AFD).

Moderated by the Senior Project Officer of AFCN, Reem Khashman, the trainer presented in a two-hour interactive webinar, the techniques, strategies and recommendations on how to enhance the social media performance for fact-checkers, so that they get a higher outreach and can reach a wider and more diverse audience.

The trainer says that the three most important recommendations to follow are to use a personal account to support the fact-checking organisation’s account, secondly to choose the platform that fits the goal you seek and finally to focus on new features with algorithms that prioritise interaction on Social Media platforms.

Fatima Bani Ahmed, a female fact-checker from Jordan, stated that she learned how to improve the interaction with her audience on her social media pages.

Iman Almasdar from Palestine, who is interested in fact-checking said: “Thank you for the important tips we learned about how to reach out to the audience and interact with them through posts on social media platforms.”

“Sa7” project aims to promote best practices, methodologies, and tools for fact checking in the Arab region, particularly in four countries facing political, economic, and security challenges and where public trust in the media is diminishing, which are; Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Iraq.