Fact-checking across four African countries has become a delivery problem as much as an editorial one. The services exist, the practitioners are trained, and the demand is constant. But whether verification actually reaches the public depends on infrastructure that is uneven at best: reliable information, cooperative officials, sustainable funding and safe working conditions. A recent study of fact-checkers in Cameroon, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa maps that operational reality in detail.
The researchers, scholars of information disorders such as misinformation and disinformation, interviewed 19 professional fact-checkers between January and August 2025: five from Cameroon, five from Kenya, five from Nigeria and four from South Africa. They selected experienced practitioners working both inside dedicated fact-checking organisations and in newsrooms with fact-checking desks, and they did not set out to measure how common any particular view is across a whole population. The four countries were chosen because they represent the range of political systems in sub-Saharan Africa.
The scale of the task these operators face is considerable. As of June 2025 there were about 450 fact-checking organisations operating in more than 100 countries, several of them African. Millions of people across the continent now get their news on mobile phones, often in closed WhatsApp groups where false claims travel quietly and fast. Around elections, false rigging claims and ethnically charged propaganda can raise tensions. And because the same false stories return every couple of years, fact-checkers repeatedly investigate claims they have already debunked, even as new ones emerge.
The study’s clearest finding is that there is no single “African fact-checker”. How these professionals define their job depends heavily on the political system they operate in. In a repressive system, the service can shrink into checking celebrity rumours. In more open systems, it can grow into a public service combining verification, education and accountability, bolstering democratic resilience among citizens.
Cameroon illustrates the constrained end of that spectrum. Officially a democracy but authoritarian in practice, it is a place where fact-checkers said their main job was debunking false claims online, yet they admitted they mostly stayed away from politics. One respondent put it plainly: “We avoid fact-checking government authorities. It is a risky enterprise to do that.” Instead they checked claims about fires, road accidents, armed robberies, the death of a public figure, or rumours about footballers, musicians and influencers. The researchers describe this as self-censorship that limits what the service can deliver. It also degrades quality: good fact-checking depends on showing the public your evidence and sources, but in Cameroon officials rarely cooperate and eyewitnesses are often too afraid to speak.
Kenya and Nigeria, described as hybrid systems where elections and constitutional rights exist alongside heavy-handed state power, present a mixed operational picture. Kenyan fact-checkers described a broad role: helping people take part in democracy, settling public disputes about facts, holding leaders accountable and guiding citizens through an overload of online information. One organisation has set up channels where people can send in viral photos or memes for checking, and mainstream newsrooms are bringing in specialists to train journalists to trace texts, images and videos back to their original sources before publishing. But the delivery bottlenecks are real. Fact-checkers reported organised disinformation campaigns by both government-aligned and opposition groups that leave ordinary people “at a crossroads” about whom to believe, along with harassment and intimidation, and politicians and officials who ignore requests to respond to viral claims, some because they believe the media is against them.
In Nigeria the researchers found a split in how the job is understood. Newer fact-checkers and those inside newsrooms tended to see verification as one task within journalism. “My job is mostly verifying viral claims before publication. I still consider myself primarily a journalist,” one said. Senior practitioners saw something bigger, including teaching the public, tracking how false stories spread over time and preventing real-world harm. “What we are essentially going for is information integrity and helping people to develop media literacy,” one explained. They also described serious pressure: “Once a claim touches politics or security, you start receiving warnings, sometimes framed as ‘friendly advice’ but clearly meant to intimidate.” Another said cybercrime and defamation laws were often used to threaten legal action even when reports were based on evidence. Funding was a constant worry. “We are chasing misinformation that spreads in minutes with resources that barely sustain daily operations.”
South Africa, whose constitution protects press freedom and where that freedom is generally respected, produced the study’s surprise. The researchers expected fact-checkers there to focus heavily on holding politicians to account. Instead, their main concerns were less about the state and more about the public. They see themselves as a complement to struggling newsrooms. “We are doing the job that everyone wants or might be doing but doesn’t have the time or the resources to really get into,” one said. They train journalists, students and community groups, and publish through partnerships with media outlets, radio and social media platforms such as TikTok. They also spoke about the limits of reacting after a claim has spread: “When you wait for a claim to go viral and then you respond to it, much of the damage has already been done,” and few people want to read a 1,000-word explanation of why a claim is wrong.
Meanwhile, across all four countries, many fact-checkers are moving away from simply declaring claims true or false and toward helping people judge information for themselves, including through “prebunking”, a proactive way of informing and warning people about common tricks before they encounter them. The researchers conclude that fact-checkers everywhere need greater protection, resources and public trust. Governments should stop misusing the law to intimidate fact-checkers, and public officials should respond to requests for comment, since checking facts is not an attack on the state. Funders and technology companies should offer long-term support, while newsrooms and fact-checking organisations can strengthen their work through closer collaboration. Media literacy should be taught in schools, and fact-checkers can reach wider audiences through local languages, radio and shorter formats. There is no single approach that will work across Africa; solutions must reflect local political realities and support those working, often at personal risk, to counter false information. Christian Nounkeu Tatchou contributed to the article.