Politics of disinformation in Africa

Solly Rakgomo | Monday April 1, 2024 10:16

The scope of these intentional efforts to distort the information environment for a political end is accelerating. The 189 documented disinformation campaigns in Africa are nearly quadruple the number reported in 2022.

Actors driving sophisticated disinformation attacks on African media ecosystems are taking advantage of the rapid expansion in the reach and accessibility of digital communications to reshape the continent’s information systems at scales and speeds not possible through traditional analogue platforms. There is a strong link between the scope of disinformation and instability. Disinformation campaigns have directly driven deadly violence, promoted and validated military coups, cowed civil society members into silence, and served as smokescreens for corruption and exploitation. This has had real-world consequences for diminishing Africans’ rights, freedoms, and security.

This onslaught of purposeful obfuscation comes as 300 million Africans have come onto social media in the past seven years. There are now more than 400 million active social media users and 600 million internet users on the continent. Africans who are online rely on social media platforms for consuming news at among the highest rates in the world. Social media users in Nigeria and Kenya are near the top of the globe in the number of hours per day spent on social platforms. They are simultaneously the countries that report the most concern about false and misleading information.

Disinformation campaigns have targeted every region of the continent. According to a study by Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, at least 39 African countries have been the target of a specific disinformation campaign. Disinformation tends to be concentrated as half of the countries subjected to disinformation (20 of the 39) have been targeted three or more times, up from just seven countries meeting that threshold in 2022. In addition, the study points out that African countries experiencing conflict are subject to much greater levels of disinformation, facing a median of five campaigns, highlighting the connection between instability and disinformation.

Countries confronting disinformation typically face multiple disinformation actors. At times, these actors amplify one another’s misleading narratives, while at others, they clash or stay in separate lanes. Nearly 60% of disinformation campaigns on the continent are foreign state-sponsored to suit geopolitical interests of these foreign states. It is also very important to note that African elections provide prime opportunities for disinformation. Some employ mercenary teams. For example, one private Israeli group, dubbed ‘Team Jorge’, has reportedly implemented disinformation campaigns to disrupt over 20 African elections since 2015.

Domestic actors have also increasingly integrated disinformation into their political playbooks, notably during Kenya’s 2022 and Nigeria’s 2023 election. It is frustratingly disturbing that disinformation is surging in African information spaces at a time when press freedom, a critical protective barrier against disinformation, is in decline.

Legislation targeting digital disinformation has been used in many African countries as a pretext for harassing and detaining journalists. These disinformation campaigns employ paid African influencers, digital avatars, and the circulation of fake and out-of-context videos and photographs. These messages copy-and-paste from and are channelled through multiple channels.

West Africa is the region most targeted by disinformation, accounting for nearly 40% of documented disinformation campaigns in Africa. Roughly half of these attacks are connected to foreign state actors. These foreign state actors have inundated the Sahel with disinformation since 2018 with 19 campaigns directed at Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. All three countries have experienced military coups foreign state-owned networks have helped prime and promote despite their abysmal track records. As described by fact-checkers in Mali, these campaigns are often “produced on an industrial scale” and have toxic impacts on the narratives circulated and tenor of online conversations.

The second largest sponsor of disinformation in the region are the military juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso. These regimes are isolated and increasingly dependent on Russian-backing to hold onto power. They apply a wide range of disinformation techniques, while scapegoating France, the United Nations, the Economic Community of West African States, and human rights groups. These regimes attempt to control the information space by cracking down on domestic journalists and banning reputable international media outlets. Militant Islamist groups are a third major sponsor of disinformation in West Africa. Nigeria is an illustration of how these groups have used a variety of disinformation tactics via local languages and closed networks (Telegram) to recruit and spread their messages.

All in all, the proliferation of disinformation is a fundamental challenge to stable and prosperous African societies. The scope of these intentional efforts to distort the information environment for a political end is accelerating. The 189 documented disinformation campaigns in Africa are nearly quadruple the number reported in 2022. Given the opaque nature of disinformation, this figure is surely an undercount.