Combatting fake news, misinformation and outright propaganda is one of the foremost challenges confronting policymakers in Africa and elsewhere around the world. Some of that misleading information is distributed organically while other memes are intentionally deployed by governments to influence local populations.
Two researchers in South Africa are exploring the role of Russian misinformation campaigns and Chinese propaganda on the continent. Dzvinka Kachur, a researcher at The Centre for Complex Systems in Transition at Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, and Jean Le Roux, research associate for the Sub-Saharan Africa region at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) based in South Africa, joins Eric & Cobus to discuss their findings and what can be done to combat the spread of fake news.
Show Notes:
- CNN.com: Russia’s ‘troll factory’ is alive and well in Africa by Mary Ilyushina
- Daily Maverick: China and Russia in Africa: Development allies or geopolitical opportunists? by Nina Callaghan, Dzvinka Kachur and Mark Swilling
- War on the Rocks: Africa: The First U.S. Casualty of the New Information Warfare Against China by Caleb Slayton
