Polls: Dataphyte Launches Election Platform to Curb Fake News, Misinformation

Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja

Dataphyte, a research and media organisation has launched its election platform to provide up-to-date, accurate, and unbiased election data for journalists, election observers and other stakeholders, as well as the general public during the forthcoming elections.

The election platform is a comprehensive repository of election data in Nigeria, offering insights and incidence tracking across all 774 local governments.
Speaking at the launch of the platform in Abuja, yesterday, the Executive Director of Dataphyte, Joshua Olufemi said the platform was designed to enable stakeholders to access election data, insights, and incidence tracking in a timely manner.

He noted that Dataphyte also launched a Handbook of Data-driven Election Reporting, a comprehensive guide for journalists on best practices for data-driven election reporting.
Olufemi said: “The entire election process, from planning to implementation, involves data. Data on voters, including the number of people registered, those who have their PVCs, election results, and the number of polling units.

“So, as a media organisation, we decided to innovate around this to enable stakeholders to experience election data and reporting differently in the 2023 elections. The Dataphyte Election Platform can be accessed at elections.dataphyte.com.”
Also, the Executive Director of Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), Dr. Tobi Oluwatola commended Dataphyte for providing a platform that could provide the citizenry with factual and credible information to ensure that everyone is rightly informed.

Oluwatola, who was represented by Bukunmi Akanbi described the launch of the platform as a critical step towards ensuring that journalists, election observers, and other stakeholders, as well as the general public, can access up-to-date, accurate, and unbiased election data.

He said: “Information disorder—misinformation- (inadvertent), disinformation (deliberate) and malinformation (true information for harm)—has been with us from the beginning of time but technology and the internet has given actors to propagate this in a way that beckons on us to take this seriously and tread with caution.”