WEEKLY TRENDS IN SOUTH AFRICA OP-ED: Disinformation in a time of Covid-19: Social media needs Rapid Information and Communications Task Team

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It’s easy to feel despair when we remember the violence that erupted in KZN and Gauteng just over a year ago. There was a proliferation of mis- and disinformation around the unrest, and we also saw a combination of online harms that worked together to ...

for similar and possibly greater levels of violence. In addition to the President’s own Expert Panel into the July 2021 Civil Unrest, the South African Human Rights Commission also held an. We hope that the findings of the SAHRC inquiry will be released soon so we can urgently engage, potentially implement its recommendations, and ensure we have effective and right-based mechanisms in place in order to be responsive to future times of crisis or unrest.

To see why we need a RICTT it’s helpful to recall that the role of social media was highlighted amid the violence. Notably, during hisRamaphosa, said: “We should refrain from posting and circulating inflammatory messages on social media, and from spreading rumours or false reports that may create further panic.

This is why we believe that given the positive and potentially dangerous role social media can play in a time of crisis, there needs to be a system in place ready to communicate effectively to combat disinformation. Fortunately, we already have some exciting precedent to draw on from the Covid pandemic and work around the elections.

While Natjoints is the logical home for the RICTT, given the dominance of security cluster entities in its makeup, it would be important that the RICTT operates at arm’s length, and it is equally important that the RICTT be guided by a rights-based approach. It is precisely during a crisis that respect for rights is required. When responses fail to infuse a rights-based approach crises may be deepened, with further rights violations coming to the fore.

The RICTT would only be called together to assist in addressing disinformation and incitement on social media platforms during times of unrest or state of disaster.

 

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