Mapping a Surge of Disinformation in Africa
Disinformation campaigns seeking to manipulate African information systems have surged nearly fourfold since 2022, triggering destabilizing and antidemocratic consequences.
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Disinformation campaigns seeking to manipulate African information systems have surged nearly fourfold since 2022, triggering destabilizing and antidemocratic consequences.
The Africa Center for Strategic Studies and the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) held an academic webinar to increase awareness and knowledge among African youth about disinformation and its effects on security in Africa.
Rapidly shifting information pathways have created vulnerabilities that foreign powers—led by Russia, China, and the Gulf States—have aggressively exploited.
Disinformation and misinformation campaigns targeted at UN missions in CAR, Mali, and DRC have increased in frequency and scope, endangering contingents, and jeopardizing the missions’ ability to implement their mandates.
Unchecked, disinformation represents a destabilizing threat to the open and dependable information pathways from which democracies draw their strength and resilience.
Russia has pioneered a model of disinformation to gain political influence in Africa that is now being replicated by other actors across the continent.
A growing trend of domestic political actors deploying targeted disinformation schemes requires expanded fact-checking capacity in Africa and collaboration with social media organizations.
Divisions within Libya’s civil war have been amplified by foreign-sponsored disinformation campaigns. Reconciliation and peacebuilding will require local actors to reclaim Libya’s digital spaces.
The growing sophistication of Russia’s disinformation campaigns in Africa demand greater vigilance from tech companies, internet watchdog groups, and governments.
Disinformation campaigns are popular among states accused of human rights violations and war crimes. None is more popular than the Russian template: a two-pronged approach that attacks the credibility of reporters of abuses as well as sows confusion about the reality of the abuse itself, thereby denying the possibility for any serious accounting. And yet, tech-enabled citizens can set the record straight. The collection of evidence—pictures, recordings, texts—can be crowd-sourced with the ubiquitous mobile phone. Combined with satellite imagery and international fact-finding missions, this evidence becomes irrefutable and can force accountability on states.
(See more recent readings on this topic here.) A Light in Libya’s Fog of Disinformation By Africa Center for Strategic Studies, October 9, 2020 Divisions within Libya’s civil war have been amplified by foreign-sponsored disinformation campaigns. Reconciliation and peacebuilding will require local actors to reclaim Libya’s digital spaces. Russian Disinformation Campaigns Target Africa: An Interview... Continue Reading
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