The Viral Video and the Anatomy of Misinformation In an age when a single smartphone clip can travel across the world within minutes, the boundary between what is real and what is fabricated becomes dangerously thin. A recent wave of concern has swept through social media platforms, triggered by a short video that appears to show massive crowds gathering in the national capital. The footage flickers across timelines, accompanied by bold captions that link it to the latest round of political protests. Many viewers, already tense and anxious, accept it as immediate proof of something momentous happening on the streets.…

With Nigeria’s 2027 general elections still a few years away, the battle over information is already taking shape—and this time, artificial intelligence is in the spotlight. At a forum in Abuja organized by Yiaga Africa in partnership with INEC, Microsoft, TikTok, the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development, Dataphyte, the MacArthur Foundation, the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, the German Agency for International Cooperation, and other groups, two of the biggest technology companies in the world made commitments that could shape how Nigerian voters experience the next election cycle. The AI and Democracy Forum was meant to be a serious…