MyAIFactChecker joins Meta’s programme, boosts Africa’s fight against misinformation

MyAIFactChecker, the pioneering AI-driven fact-checking platform developed by FactCheck Africa, has been officially accepted into the Meta Language Technology Partner Programme, an innovative initiative by Meta aimed at advancing open-source language technologies and encouraging greater linguistic inclusion globally.

This milestone marks a bold step in MyAIFactChecker’s mission to break down language barriers and elevate fact-checking across Africa, where linguistic diversity often presents unique challenges in the fight against misinformation and disinformation.

The Meta Language Technology Partner Programme is designed to support organisations that are developing and deploying language tools to improve content moderation, fact-checking, and access to reliable information, particularly in underserved and low-resource languages. Through this collaboration, Meta aims to accelerate the development of tools such as AI-powered translation and speech recognition systems.

Speaking on the development, founder of FactCheckAfrica, Abideen Olasupo, described the partnership as a “milestone moment” for the organisation. “In a continent as rich and diverse in language as Africa, technology must rise to meet the scale and complexity of our communication landscape. This collaboration with Meta allows us to build and refine the tools that will help us do just that,” he said.

As part of the programme, MyAIFactChecker will contribute key linguistic resources to Meta’s open-source efforts. These include over 10 hours of speech recordings (with or without transcriptions), Large corpora of written text and translated sentence sets (minimum 200, ideally in the tens of thousands).

These resources will help train more accurate and inclusive language models that reflect the unique linguistic realities of Africa.

Olasupo noted that this partnership not only strengthens FactCheckAfrica’s technological capabilities but also reinforces its broader commitment to media literacy, critical thinking, and truth-telling. “It’s not just about combating false information, it’s about empowering Africans with the tools to discern fact from fiction in a digital age,” he said.