We have graduated from ordinary fake News to ‘Deep’ fake News – Lai Mohammed

Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed has expressed concern over the use of fake news to diminish the successes of the federal government.

Mohammed who spoke during the 64th conference of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), in Sal Island, Cape Verde said fake news has become a weapon to attack the government and its officials.

“As a matter of fact, Nigerians should know that we have graduated from ordinary fake news to ”deep” fake news. The danger of deep fake news is that it is difficult to differentiate the fake news from real news,” the minister said.

“This is because purveyors of deep fake news would take a story, be it a video or a photograph and make it look real. They will take videos of what is happening in other lands, doctor them and freely circulate them as what is really happening in Nigeria. Ditto photographs.

“News stories are even worse, because they embellish such fake stories with quotes and videos and even quote government officials, as if they are real.

“The deep fake news was fabricated just to take the shine away from the government’s success in not only retaining positive GDP growth, but surpassing all expectations crawling from 0.11 per cent two quarters ago to marginal .51 per cent in the last quarter and then 5.0 percent.

“Of course, they don’t wish the government and Nigeria well, but needed something to dampen the enthusiasm of government and make Nigerians sad.”