About
From blogging collective to
fact-checking pioneer
I co-founded Zone Nine, Ethiopia's pioneering digital rights blogging collective, during the Arab Spring era, when social media held the promise of democratizing public discourse. That experience, including arrest and detention, gave me a firsthand education in the power and peril of digital information.
I went on to build Inform Africa and HaqCheck, Ethiopia's first IFCN-accredited fact-checking platform, growing it from a concept to a 40-person operation. Today, I focus on the intersection of AI safety, foreign information manipulation, and platform accountability across the Horn of Africa and beyond.
My work applies frameworks like DISARM to map influence operations, uses OSINT methodologies to track synthetic media threats, and develops policy recommendations that hold platforms and state actors accountable. I am currently based in the Washington, DC area.
- Disinformation Analysis
- AI Safety & Governance
- OSINT & DISARM Framework
- Trust & Safety Operations
- Influence Operations
- Platform Accountability
- Fact-Checking & Verification
- Digital Rights Advocacy
- Content Moderation Policy
- Media Development
