With unemployment in South Africa at 32.1%, most political parties have been keen to talk up their ability to create jobs ahead of the May 2024 elections. But do the ruling ANC’s triumphant claims about a flagship programme stand up to scrutiny?

In April 2021, a coordinated campaign targeting two South African banks surfaced on Twitter. While superficially taking aim at systemic racism in South Africa’s banking sector, beneath the #RacistBanksMustFall hashtag’s altruistic veneer were the vested interests of Sekunjalo Independent Media, owners of South Africa’s third largest news organization.

The Electoral Integrity Dialogue explores the significant role of electoral integrity in South Africa and the various measures to guarantee a fair, just, and transparent electoral process. The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) plays a crucial role in ensuring electoral integrity and preventing any fraudulent activities, manipulations, coercion, or other irregularities that could potentially undermine the legitimacy of the election results. Izak Minnaar highlighted that the IEC is an independent body with the responsibility of ensuring that the electoral process is conducted in a transparent and impartial manner. This includes overseeing the voter registration process, the voting process, and the announcement of election results, among other things.

Twitter account linked to a member of South Africa’s third largest political party baited racial tensions to monetize traffic to his website

As our experience in Kenya shows, Africa Check’s Fact Ambassador programme has boosted our multi-tentacular approach to fighting false information online and offline.

At Africa Check we’re no strangers to uncovering scams. We’ve written extensively about job scams, conference scams, and medical scams and even took a deep dive into a particularly bizarre scam involving a spiritual white boy, South African business exec Tokyo Sexwale, and a missing R41 quadrillion.

South Africans have the right to access government information, so it’s important that agency and department websites work well. Africa Check’s researchers review these sites – from the excellent (looking at you, Stats SA) to the poorly organised and the downright ugly.

The panel discussion explored how disinformation can influence elections and democratic processes, evaluate propaganda and fake news, how communities can strengthen digital resilience in response to future trends, how to strike a balance between freedom of expression and disinformation, and various strategies that can be employed in South Africa to rebuild trust in media and institutions. It showcased various countries where disinformation campaigns aimed to manipulate voter perceptions and sway election outcomes. Participants gained valuable insights from subject matter experts Azola Dayile and Tshepiso Hadebe into effective countermeasures employed by activists, journalists, and electoral bodies. The COVID-19 pandemic has witnessed an infodemic and a proliferation of misinformation and disinformation. Participants learned how scientific experts, health organisations, and fact-checkers have debunked falsehoods, ensuring accurate information reaches the public.

Disinformation and online manipulation is a widespread issue, targeting a number of minority groups based on gender, sexual expression, race, age, and more. In light of the rise in politically driven attacks on the rights of LGBTQI+ persons, it's critical to counter disinformation in order for them to receive treatment for physical and mental health, sex reassignment procedures, and have safer spaces in schools and communities.

The internet has taken the globe by storm for the past 30 years, and it’s almost impossible to imagine the world without it. Digital privacy can be at risk without the proper online precautions in place.

It has become increasingly common to read news on the internet where young people participate in viral challenges that have harmful consequences for their health or even for the rest of their lives and those of their families.

Phishing is among the biggest cyber threats facing organizations. According to Proofpoint’s 2021 State of the Phish Report, more than 80% of organizations fell victim to a phishing attack last year.

Value, nowadays, comes in lots of different forms. We have traditional ones, such as time, power, security, health, and money. However, there is another, new form of value which is not yet fully understood: digital information. In this article, our aim is to raise awareness about how Facebook affects us and our loved ones on a daily basis, and how not knowing our rights and the help we can receive open us up to potential harm in the cyberspace.

Social media platforms allow users to interact in a faster and easier manner. On one hand, this phenomenon helps establishing relationships and bonds beyond physical boundaries, leading to the exchange of information and content of all kinds. It is also not a secret that these platforms offer users tools for commercializing goods, products and services.