South African Overview and impact of Disinformation
The explosion and shift to digital technology and social media has brought many new and exciting possibilities and opportunities. Content can be tailored to meet the needs and interests of audiences. Information on almost any subject can be found in milli-seconds. The latest events can be shared around the world in an instant. The potential for more people to have access, for more people to have their voices heard has never been greater. And yet, we find ourselves being overwhelmed by a deluge of information that often isn’t just inaccurate, it is being spread to undermine our ability to know up from down and what’s real and what isn’t. We were only a few weeks into the COVID pandemic, when the Director General of the World Health Organisation announced that “we’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic. [Disinformation] spreads faster and more easily than this virus and is just as dangerous.”
Mis and disinformation about COVID haven’t just resulted in people being misinformed, in many cases it has been directly linked to loss of life, but disinformation – the intentional spreading of false information to cause harm, and misinformation - the spreading of false information isn’t limited to the current health pandemic. The direct effect of disinformation was experienced when Bell Pottinger ran a campaign to deepen divides, spread hate and divert attention from criminality. In July 2021 we saw the power of social media during the riots and how it was used to actively incite further destruction, resulting in loss of life and billions in damage to property and business, let alone the costs of lost jobs and opportunities. More recently we have seen how it has been deployed to attack some of the key banking institutions