Misinformation and disinformation in the digital age and its impact on the information ecosystem

Author: Nomyezo Mqhele 
Multi-disciplinary human rights lawyer

Traditional media has been replaced with social media as a source of reliable news.[1] South Africa has reached 26 million social media users as of January 2024.[2]   This represents a three-fold increase from 9.8 million users in 2014 and highlights the increasing dependence of people on social media instead of traditional media.[3] This heavy social media dependency creates space for information disorder to filter through. The pervasiveness of information disorder presents a serious threat to the information ecosystem, and to society, as it has the potential to significantly alter beliefs, behaviors and policy. Such information is rarely false, but it is used to distort understanding by including elements of accurate and inaccurate claims, making it complicated to judge fair and accurate information.

Information Disorder in Africa

Information disorder is the umbrella term used to describe the three different forms of information that cause harm namely, information disorder, the distorted focus of information available to the public, and the denial of easy public access to credible information.[4]

Misinformation could be described as information that is unintentionally incorrect and shared inadvertently whereas disinformation is the deliberate creation and sharing of false or manipulated information intended to deceive and mislead audiences to cause harm, or for political, personal or financial gain.[5]

It is important to identify and understand who creates and perpetuates information disorder to understand this phenomenon, and why others may believe it to be true and share it. Creators of this phenomenon have been identified as traditional media and politicians, public institutions, business leaders, traditional and religious leaders, special interest groups, offline community networks and ordinary social media users. [6] This disorder circulates in a broad spread of different channels and touches on numerous topics including crime and justice, health, politics, the economy and media. This can ultimately lead to a distorted understanding of the natural world, causing a rise in discrimination and creating space for human rights violations.

Information disorder distorts understanding in three categorical ways.[7] The first category includes information that is outright false, hoaxes and scams, and general imposter content. The other two categories constitute embellished information and manipulated information, respectively.

To expand, embellished information is regarded as unproven claims stated as known facts or satire that is understood to be true. This includes claims that bear an element of truth but overstate or understate a position, or that are misleading in other ways.

Deliberately fabricated or manipulated content can be seen as coordinated inauthentic behaviors in the form of patterns of online use intended to distort understanding and claims that mislabel or misattribute content such as photographs or videos, where the intention is clearly to mislead, falls under the last class of information disorder.

White genocide in South Africa

A small group of white South Africans believe that farm attacks or murders, and other crimes against white South Africans, amount to a targeted ‘white genocide’.[8] This imagined issue has gained traction throughout the country and globally over the years despite the actual number of farm attacks steadily decreasing to an all-time low. The growth and spread of this issue of white genocide can be attributed to online spaces and the information ecosystems fostered therein.

On 29 July 2023, the Economic Freedom Front (the EFF), one of South Africa’s opposition political parties, commemorated 10 years since the inception of the party. During the celebrations, an entire stadium of EFF supporters- echoing the call of the EFF leader, Julius Malema, sang the struggle song “Kill the Boers”.

Benny Johnson, a right-wing provocateur with a large following on social media, posted a video of Malema singing the struggle song.[9]  In response, Elon Musk, claimed that the EFF is openly pushing for the genocide of white people in South Africa, insinuating that the President was allowing such violence to take place.[10]

The ‘white genocide’ problem is a deep-set issue in South Africa as it highlights stark racial and political dichotomies which are seen in the emotional posts and responses arising out of group identities and cognitive biases that work to sustain the disproportional media spectacle of farm attacks.[11]  The ‘white genocide’ feeds into the ‘swart gevaar’ post-apartheid narrative that scares some of the white people of South Africa, some to the point where they emigrated from the country in fear for their lives.

This struggle song, popular during the apartheid regime, has become part of the EFF’s manifesto which is to acknowledge the history of Black discrimination and dispossession of land in South Africa and the aspirations towards dismantling the legacy of apartheid through substantive land redistribution. A freedom fighters’ song refashioned to fuel the fight for the freedoms relevant to today.

In August 2022, the Equality Court in the High Court in Johannesburg dismissed the hate speech case brought by the Afriforum against EFF for singing the protest song and ruled that the song does not amount to hate speech.[12] It was ruled that the song articulated the failure of the current government to address issues of economic empowerment and land redistribution.

Socio- political Impact

Freedom of Speech, not Freedom of Reach is X’s policy on freedom of expression in a nutshell. This approach involves social correction instruments that allow the user to regulate content on the platform without censorship. The danger in this policy lies in the power users have to dictate discourse, determining what is harmful or not in the information discourse based on latent biases. The platform should consider aligning its policy with international human rights law that provides a clear framework on information disorder amounting to human rights violations[13]. This would provide a clear framework for the limitations to freedom of expression and avoid leaving the determination of harmful content to the opinions of actors in the information ecosystem.

According to the Centre for Analytics and Behavioral Change,[14] the highest retweet referencing Malema’s video was a tweet outside of South Africa disparaging claims of the existence of white genocide, receiving over 4000 retweets, followed by a slew of satirical tweets from South Africans trending throughout that weekend. Elon’s inflammatory tweets were downrated by 19% from a reach of 1.2 billion to under 1 billion whereas Malema’s reach increased from 20.74 million to 25.8 million. [15]

This suggests that participants in the information ecosystem were able to see through the disorder and understand the clip was meant to infuriate and not inform. However, a classic retaliation to healthy media literacy is doubling down on ill- informed beliefs and rejecting accuracy so that the narrative reconciles with a certain agenda.[16] This is evident in the way collective cultural trauma is weaponised by political parties to gain support by creating more information disorder, jeopardising national unity and identity.[17]

The 2024 general elections have highlighted how the sphere of information disorder can expand from the digital space to infiltrate the information ecosystem in all spheres of society, polarising a nation that is already suffering from social inequalities and anxieties deeply embedded in their psyches.  The ease and desirability of creating information disorder is illustrated in the manner the one-party dominance that has been prevalent since 1994 has been diluted by the emergence of alternative movements, such as uMkhonto we Sizwe and the Patriotic [18]who have opted into racial and tribal divisions through information disorder to successfully garner support and gain popularity. [19]

The recorded 793 online attacks against journalists and over 200 complaints from the public against the IEC originating from the proliferation of mis- and disinformation from the platform during and leading up to the general elections indicates that the lack of regulation of X creates the ideal environment to create and generate information disorder to pollute the information ecosystem. [20]

Conclusion

Information disorder is insidious and can comprise of harm to fairness and social cohesion by entrenching negative stereotypes and enflaming social divisions. The African continent is seeing the long reach of far- right groups and organisations using information disorder to convolute the information ecosystem to influence important policy and politics for Africans

Media information literacy, and social correction are vital instruments in understanding the various agendas online because these tools afford readers the ability to discern content within the information ecosystem and ideally exercise healthy media literacy. Strict guidelines and frameworks are necessary to combat and discourage information disorder and access to accurate information in Africa.

[1] P Gutura ‘An Era of Journalism Transition in South Africa: Traditional Media v Online Media’ (2016). Journal of Social Sciences. JSS-51-13-001-17-2166-Olusola-A-Tx1.pmd.pdf

[2]  [Accessed on 28 May 2024]

[3] note 2 above.

[4] P Cunliffe- Jones and others ‘Types, Drivers and Effects of Misinformation’ (2018) Misinformation Policy in Sub- Saharan Africa. University of Westminster Press.

[5] UK Government Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee ‘Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Interim report’ (2018)

[6]  S Timcke and others ‘The Materials of Misinformation on the African Continent: Mid- year Report (2023)-  RIA_Information_Disorders_2023_Mid_Year_Report.pdf (researchictafrica.net).

[7]Note 6 above.

[8] JA Barraclough ‘Facebook’s white genocide problem: a sociotechnical exploration of problematic information, shareability, and social correction in a South African context’ (2020) University of Cape Town.

[9]  Tweet from Benny Johnson on X: “Shocking video shows South Africa’s black party singing “kill the Boer (Whites), kill the White farmer” This is all downstream from the rotten secular religion of wokeness and CRT plaguing America today. You have been warned. WATCH. https://t.co/P4T8XqSjMq” / X (twitter.com).

[10] I Tharoor ’Elon Musk raises specter of ‘white genocide’ after South Africa apartheid chant’ The Washington Post. 1 August 2023 (Accessed on 29 August 2022)

[11]  Note 8 above.

[12] T Broughton ’Judge rules that “Kill the boer – Kill the farmer” is not hate speech‘ GroundUp 25 August 2022 [ Accessed 6 September 2023].

[13] International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights | OHCHR. [Accessed 13 November 2023].

[14]  The Centre for Analytics and Behavioral Change is a non- profit company that aims to amplify civil society messaging in the digital age to empower citizens and communities.

[15] Y Chetty ‘ No matter what Elon Musk tweets about farm murders, two wrongs don’t make a white genocide‘ Daily Maverick. 17 August 2023 [Accessed 12 September 2023]

[16] Note 8 above.

[17]  J Broodryk ’Attackers in KZN chant “Kill the Boer, kill the Farmer‘ AfriForum – DOCUMENTS | Politicsweb. 29 August 2023 [Accessed 14 September 2023].

[19]  D Pilling & M Mark ‘South African election turns populist as parties play anti-foreigner card (ft.com)‘Financial Times 31 March 2024 [Accessed 24 June 2024].

[20] Media Monitoring Africa: Real411. ”Tracking trends from Real411: Impact of Mis- and disinformation in 2024 National and provincial elections in South Africa”. 31 May 2024.

About the Author:

Nomyezo is a multi-disciplinary human rights lawyer who is committed to the advancement of human rights and social justice through research, advocacy, constitutionalism and strategic litigation. She is also a published and prize- winning writer and poet who uses her words to amplify the social inequalities that exist within society to ensure the realization of democratic and constitutional rights. She recently participated in the Presidential Climate Commission’s Youth Perspective Series, where she wrote about the opportunities available for the youth within the just energy transition to advance climate action.