Assessment of Social Media Misinformation During the 2023 Nigerian General Elections

This study assesses the prevalence, typology, and spread of social media misinformation during the 2023 Nigerian General Elections, examining its sources, formats, and audience reception across different geopolitical zones. Electoral misinformation poses serious threats to democratic processes by distorting voter information, suppressing turnout, and delegitimising election outcomes. Nigeria's 2023 elections occurred in a high-information-distortion environment, with widespread reports of fabricated results sheets, fake candidate announcements, and manipulated photographs circulating on social media. This study combines automated and manual content analysis of flagged misinformation items archived by Nigeria's fact-checking organisations (Africa Check, Dubawa, and FactCheckHub) from January to March 2023, supplemented by a survey of 350 social media users across Lagos, Kano, Abuja, Enugu, Port Harcourt, and Maiduguri assessing misinformation exposure and belief. Findings reveal 847 unique misinformation items catalogued, with doctored images (38 percent) and out-of-context videos (29 percent) as the most common formats. WhatsApp accounts for 52 percent of misinformation origin or amplification, followed by Twitter at 31 percent. Misinformation belief rates are highest for items that align with recipients' pre-existing political preferences, confirming confirmation bias effects. The study concludes that electoral misinformation in Nigeria operates through highly partisan information ecosystems. It recommends pre-election media literacy campaigns, platform transparency requirements, and election-specific fact-checking resource expansion.

Keywords: misinformation, social media, 2023 elections, Nigeria, fact-checking.