By Heather Buzuzi
Twenty-four representatives of six community-based organisations (CBOs) in Manicaland province have undergone training on identifying and exposing disinformation and misinformation.
The training took place in Mutare last Thursday and Friday as a pilot project to empower grassroots and marginalised communities to combat the twin evil of disinformation and misinformation taking place both online and offline.
Mr Tawanda Majoni, the training coordinator, who is also the Information for Development Trust (IDT) director, defined disinformation as the deliberate production and sharing of fake information.
He added that misinformation is the spreading of false information without knowing that it is fake.
Six CBOs, namely Mutasa Youth Forum, Manicaland Youth Assembly (MAYA), Zimbabwe Diamond Workers Union (ZIDAWU), Young Entrepreneurs Trust of Zimbabwe (YETZ), Zivai Community Empowerment Trust (ZICET) and Social and Economic Justice Ambassadors (SEJA) benefited from the training.
The trainees testified that they had gained new knowledge and skills to combat disinformation and misinformation.
“We have learnt a lot from the training. We now know the difference between disinformation and misinformation. We can now amplify our voices on steps we should take before giving out information to media houses to avoid disinformation and misinformation,” said Coita Sandira from the Mutasa Youth Forum.
In an interview with Wasu Post, Mr Majoni said misinformation and disinformation were spreading at an alarming rate and tended to negatively affect marginalised communities socially, politically and economically.
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that disinformation and misinformation are spreading everywhere but, quite disturbingly, grassroots and marginalised communities are particularly affected because people living in these communities generally lack the capacity to tell the difference between what is true information and falsified information.
“In that regard, they are being particularly affected socially, economically and politically through harmful information that is spread through disinformation and misinformation.
“It is, therefore, very important to build the skills and knowledge of people living in marginalised communities to be able to identify and expose disinformation and misinformation. This is the context in which we are training community representatives to identify, expose and therefore combat disinformation.
“You know very well that a community that is affected by these evils lives or exists on the basis of ignorance and where there is ignorance, meaningful development cannot take place. Our vision is to build communities that are resilient to disinformation and misinformation,” he said.
“In order to ensure and encourage and promote grassroots development, we are, therefore, training community leaders who will cascade the knowledge to the constituencies which they serve”, Mr Majoni added.