DDMAC proudly presents you the visual results of a field trip to Ethiopia. During the project group’s stay in Addis Abeba, documentary filmmaker Loretta van der Horst shot short documentaries to make insightful how three Ethiopians deal with the information disorder in times of a surging conflict. The short documentaries tell the stories of Samuel Getachew, Rohobot Ayalew, and Elham Ali Mehammed, who as journalists and fact checkers combat the growing amount of false information in unique ways.
The video about Samuel Getachew shows the importance of social media in the Ethiopian conflict. As it becomes clear that the safety of journalists is under attack, the local producer for Al-Jazeera demonstrates how contending ethnic and political groups and a disparity in regional media coverage further exceberates the information disorder.
The video about Rohobot Ayalew visualizes how her position as a fact checker at HaqCheck is essential to track misleading edits of war footage spread on social media. Her personal story illustrates how disinformation and hate speech can be a direct threat to someone’s life as it may incite hate crimes.
In the third video, it becomes evident that the media public’s lack of education and digital literacy disturb them from consuming filtered information. Elham Ali Mehammed describes how her motivation to defend herself and Ethiopia’s communities encourages her to work with youth and instruct them on the information disorder.