Sierra Leone: Social Media and the Challenges of Fake News, Incitement and Hate Speech

Among trending social media images claimed as perpetrators of the August 10 violence is a Nigerian rapper, Oladapo Olaitan Olaonipekun, nicknamed Dagrin. He died twelve years ago. Yet he was recently declared wanted by the Sierra Leone police. How a man who died over a decade ago became a wanted person in Sierra Leone speaks volume of what social media can do and the level of our growing dependency on it as a source of information.

Not only that the August 10 protest was entirely incited through…