In the run-up to the November 4 local government elections, South Africa is not just preparing ballot boxes and counting stations; it is also wrestling with a flood of digital messages designed to confuse and mislead. Every election carries a simple, sacred promise: that the hand marking the ballot belongs to a free mind. The Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) has received more than 700 complaints about election-related disinformation, a number that makes clear how much weight the information environment carries in shaping political choices. Many complaints involve posts on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter, and some centre on photographs manipulated with artificial intelligence. Faces are altered, events recreated, and ordinary people suddenly appear in scenes they have never encountered. These are not harmless pranks; they are attempts to use the tools of modern media to undermine the public’s ability to see clearly. Sy Mamabolo, the IEC’s chief electoral officer, has acknowledged the complaints but stressed that the incidents have not significantly disrupted the electoral environment. Yet he remains concerned about trust. “A technically flawless election can still lose public trust if citizens are overwhelmed by disinformation,” he warns. That insight is the key to everything that follows. The machinery of an election may be perfect, but if voters lose confidence in the information around it, the result is not true democracy. That is why the IEC is joining forces with major technology companies, not to silence criticism but to protect the integrity of election information and give voters a credible place to turn when lies begin to spread.
The partnership at the centre of this response is both practical and symbolic. The IEC is working with Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok and the non-profit organisation Moxii Africa. These are not natural allies in every context, but they share a common interest in keeping South Africa’s elections credible. The arrangement follows a similar framework that was used before the 2024 national and provincial elections, so it is not built on untested promises. What it does is remove one of the biggest obstacles in the fight against disinformation: speed. By the time a false post is noticed, it may already have been shared thousands of times, and waiting for a platform to respond after days of paperwork can make the damage irreversible. Mamabolo says the partnership “eliminates barriers to direct access to the platforms and enables instantaneous remedial action against disinformation peddlers.” That is a significant statement. It means the IEC can talk directly to the right people at the right companies when a lie is spreading, and the platforms can act quickly by removing content, adding advisory warnings, or delisting posts that break their rules. The agreement also creates a working group for the election period, supports election awareness campaigns, and provides disinformation training for political parties, candidates and other stakeholders. Importantly, the partnership does not demand that platforms hand over confidential user data, and it respects the Constitution and existing laws. Each company still applies its own policies, and the IEC is not asking to become the internet’s censor. It is asking for cooperation, so that voters are not left alone with their phones against a coordinated campaign of deception.
Behind the partnership lies a legal framework that gives the effort real weight. The Electoral Code of Conduct Countering Disinformation in the Local Government Elections was gazetted on September 4. The name may be bureaucratic, but the effect is straightforward: there are now binding rules against deliberately misleading voters in the election context. The code applies to political parties, candidates and anyone acting on their behalf, which means a party’s social media manager, a candidate’s volunteer, or a campaign worker distributing material cannot simply claim that a lie was not official policy. It is part of the wider Electoral Code of Conduct, so it carries the same sanctions as other election offences. Mamabolo has explained that the IEC will carefully review complaints, and depending on what it finds, it can refer matters to the Electoral Court. That court has serious powers at its disposal, including the ability to impose fines of up to R200,000 and custodial sentences of between five and ten years. These are not punishments that anyone should take lightly, and their existence sends a clear message: election disinformation is not a minor social media annoyance, but a threat to the legitimacy of the democratic process. Yet the point is not to fill prisons with trolls or to frighten people into silence. The point is to deter deliberate deception. There is still enormous space for passionate criticism, difficult debates and hard campaigning. The code does not ask politicians to be nice; it asks them not to corrupt the fundamental basis of voter choice. In a democracy, the citizen has a right to make up their own mind, and that right becomes meaningless if the information they are given is deliberately false. That is what the legal framework is designed to protect.
Ordinary citizens are central to this defence, and the IEC has given them a clear channel to fight back. The commission has designated Real411 to help minimise the impact of disinformation during the 2026 local government elections. Anyone who encounters suspicious election-related content can submit a complaint through the Real411 website or mobile application, and complaints are handled in all 11 official languages. This is not a small detail. Language is the doorway to participation, and a grand mother in Limpopo, a street trader in Durban, or a student in Soweto should all be able to report a lie in the language they know best. When a complaint arrives, Real411 does not simply pass it along. It independently assesses the information and recommends a course of action to the IEC and the relevant platform. From there, the commission can take several paths. It can refer the matter to the Electoral Court for possible sanctions. It can ask the platform to act by removing the content or applying a warning label. Or it can issue a media statement to alert the public and correct the false information. This last option may be the most powerful because public correction can stop a lie in its tracks and give people something they badly need: a reliable statement of what is actually true. The IEC has also published guidance on its website on identifying, checking and reporting election disinformation, which is a practical resource for people who want to be responsible sharers rather than accidental amplifiers. The message to voters is simple: trust, but verify. If something feels manipulative, question it. If an image seems too perfect, check it. If a party is quoted in a way that seems outrageous, look for the original source. These habits, repeated across millions of people, create a stronger defence than any single algorithm.
The technology companies involved in the partnership have made their own commitments, and their words reflect a growing understanding that digital platforms have become public infrastructure. Microsoft South Africa’s director of government affairs, Abongile Vanda, argues that free, fair and credible elections depend on people being able to trust the information they see. No single organisation can tackle disinformation alone, which is why Microsoft is pleased to join the IEC in this effort. The company has said it will work alongside the commission, civil society and industry to help voters find authoritative election information, strengthen media and AI literacy, and counter deceptive AI-generated content. The reference to AI literacy is especially important because as artificial intelligence becomes better, the line between real and fake becomes harder to see. A manipulated photograph may once have been a clumsy giveaway, but now it can be nearly impossible to distinguish from a genuine image. TikTok is also taking concrete steps. Tholoana Ncheke-Mahlaela, the platform’s government relations and public policy lead for Southern Africa, says TikTok takes its responsibility to protect the community during elections very seriously. The platform has introduced election-related labels and search banners to direct users to an in-app Election Centre, and it supports this with moderation systems and collaboration with fact-checking partners and electoral commissions. The idea is to make authoritative information easier to find than the falsehoods that circulate in dark corners of the internet. Moxii Africa’s director, William Bird, speaks for many when he says that information integrity is fundamental to the credibility of any democratic process. In a digital environment that grows more complex by the day, protecting voters from misinformation and disinformation requires co-ordinated action across institutions, platforms, civil society and citizens themselves. This partnership, he says, is an important commitment to ensuring that South Africans can access accurate, trustworthy election information and participate in the 2026 local government elections with confidence.
At its core, this is about more than algorithms, penalties and press statements. It is about the human experience of democracy. South Africa has gone through too much to allow an election to be poisoned by lies, and the IEC’s response should give voters hope. The more than 700 complaints already received show that people are watching and paying attention. The partnership with Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok and Moxii Africa shows that those who control the digital spaces where public conversation happens are willing to accept a share of responsibility. The legal code shows that there are consequences for those who deliberately try to mislead. Real411 gives ordinary people a way to report what they see in their own languages, and the IEC’s guidance gives everyone a roadmap for navigating a complicated information landscape. None of this promises perfection, because disinformation will never be fully defeated. But it does promise vigilance. It promises that when a false story begins to spread, there are people whose job is to catch it, institutions whose duty is to correct it, and platforms whose power is needed to stop it. On November 4, when South Africans enter polling stations, they should be able to carry with them the confidence that the information they have seen has not been allowed to run riot. They should be able to vote according to their own hopes, fears and experiences, rather than according to a carefully crafted fiction. That is the deepest hope behind all the technical work. The machinery of democracy may be complicated, but its spirit is simple: ordinary people, given honest information, can be trusted to make the right choices for themselves and for the country.