OPINION | Anti-disinformation alliance is a robust antidote to fake news
Last week, my aunt forwarded me a voice note on WhatsApp. Her voice was shaking as she told me that the government was planning to shut off electricity in our whole township because of a secret deal with a foreign company. She said a “friend of a friend who works at Eskom” had confirmed it. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Within two hours, that voice note was in five different family groups, two church groups, and someone had even posted it on Facebook with a dramatic caption. It wasn’t true. It took me less than two minutes to check a reliable news site and see that the whole story was made up. But by then, the damage was done. People were angry, scared, and ready to believe the next lie. I remember growing up when my grandmother used to say, “A lie can run round the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” She didn’t know anything about algorithms or engagement metrics, but she knew the truth had always been slow. What she could never have imagined is that the lie would no longer run—it would fly. It would jump from one phone to another, from one continent to another, from a random stranger to our most sacred family groups, all while the truth was still checking its sources. That is the thing about fake news: it doesn’t need to be true to feel true. It arrives with confidence, urgency, and just enough detail to slip past our defenses. We’ve all been caught by it. Maybe we’ve even shared it without thinking. This is precisely why the idea of an anti-disinformation alliance is not just a clever phrase—it is a necessary, robust, and deeply human antidote to the sickness that has infected our information ecosystem. The alliance is not one organisation or one fact-checking website. It is a loose but powerful coalition of journalists, editors, platforms, researchers, community leaders, and ordinary citizens who have decided that truth is worth defending. It is a safety net for a society drowning in half-truths and outright lies. And if we are honest, we need it now more than ever.
Fake news, of course, is not new. Lies have been spread by kings, priests, generals, and colonial administrators for centuries. But the old lies had limits. They could only travel as fast as a horse, a ship, or a printing press. They had to survive the scrutiny of editors, elders, and public gatherings. Today, a single lie can be launched from a bedroom in one city, travel across the entire world in seconds, and land in millions of pockets before the sun rises. Our phones have become little more than truth killers. The algorithms on social media do not care whether something is true; they care whether it is emotional, outrageous, and shareable. Fear, anger, and outrage are the fuel that keeps the machine running. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw people refuse life-saving vaccines because of a stupid video made by someone who had never studied medicine. We saw bleach-drinking tips circulate as if they were grandmother’s remedies. We saw xenophobic messages that blamed foreign nationals for every problem, from high crime to unemployment, with no evidence whatsoever. Election seasons are worse. Political parties now hire digital hitmen to create fake WhatsApp groups, fake news sites, and fake profiles to smear opponents and confuse voters. In South Africa, where many people still trust WhatsApp messages more than official announcements, the danger is even greater. If a rumour says that a child was kidnapped in a certain shopping centre, the story will spread like wildfire, even when the police have denied it. If a voice note says that a certain community is planning an attack, people will respond with violence. This is not just stupid behaviour. It is life-threatening. The problem is also psychological. We are not wired to question the people we love. When our uncle sends us something, we trust it because we trust him. He is not lying to us; he is just passing on what he saw. And that’s the trap. Fake news thrives on the very bonds of trust that hold families and communities together. The only way to fight it is by building a different kind of trust: trust in a process, trust in facts, trust in people who have dedicated their lives to telling the truth. This is why the alliance matters.
So what does an anti-disinformation alliance actually do? It is not one big boss who tells everyone what to think. It is more like a neighbourhood watch for the public conversation. It brings together professional fact-checkers, investigative journalists, newsrooms, academic researchers, social media platforms, and civil society groups. It also includes ordinary citizens like you and me—people who are willing to pause before sharing, to ask questions, to report suspicious content, and to support credible journalism. On the ground, this means that when a suspicious story starts to go viral, a network of fact-checkers can quickly investigate and publish a clear verdict. That verdict is then shared across multiple platforms and often boosted by mainstream media. It also means that local elders and religious leaders are trained to spot misinformation and to talk to their communities in a way that does not shame them. A good alliance does not call people stupid for believing a lie. It understands that many people are tired, anxious, and overwhelmed. It offers them a kinder way back to the truth. It creates a database of known false claims, so that journalists can avoid repeating them and so that politicians can be held accountable when they repeat them. It also pushes platforms to change their algorithms, to label content, and to slow down the spread of viral lies. There are already examples of this working. During the 2021 July unrest in South Africa, false messages about where protests were happening helped to fan the flames. Later, fact-checking groups worked to expose the lies and to track the networks that had spread them. They could not undo the damage, but they proved that a coordinated response is possible. The alliance is not about censorship. It is not about a group of elite media people deciding what is true. It is about creating a system where the truth has a fighting chance. Imagine if every church, mosque, taxi rank, and school had a designated person who could quickly check a rumour and tell people, calmly and clearly, what is going on. Imagine if the same energy we use to forward chain messages was used to forward corrections. That is the alliance in action. It is about making sure that when a lie reaches your phone, there is a better story waiting to meet it. That is not a luxury. That is a foundation of democracy.
The reason this approach is so robust is because it refuses to rely on any single weapon. A single fact-checking website can be ignored, attacked, or shut down. A government ministry that tries to fight fake news can easily become a propaganda machine. A social media company that promises to remove harmful content often does too little, too late, and always seems to have a conflict of interest. But an alliance is different. It is a web, not a wall. If one thread breaks, the others hold. When journalists and community leaders work together, they combine the power of professional verification with the trust of local relationships. A journalist in Johannesburg can check a rumour using official records, but a pastor in a small town can stand in front of his congregation and say, “I checked this with credible people, and it is not true.” The congregation may not read newspapers, but they will listen to their pastor. Similarly, a student activist who has a lot of followers can share the same correction in a language that young people actually use. In a country like South Africa, with more than ten official languages and deep inequality, a fact-check written in English will only reach a fraction of the population. The alliance can translate, adapt, and explain in ways that make sense in each community. The alliance is robust because it can move at the speed of the news cycle. It does not wait for a weekly paper or a prime-time television show. It uses WhatsApp, Twitter, TikTok, and radio to fight fire with fire. It is also robust because it is iterative. Every false story that is debunked teaches the alliance something about how lies are made and spread. It learns which narratives are being weaponised, which emotions are being exploited, and which networks are behind them. Over time, the alliance becomes smarter, faster, and more precise. This is not a magic bullet. It is a muscle. It only works if we exercise it every day. And like any muscle, it gets stronger with use. The robustness also comes from diversity. People are less likely to trust an alliance that is all from one political party, one race, one class, or one profession. But when the alliance is genuinely broad—when it includes the voices of women, young people, rural communities, and minorities—it becomes far harder to dismiss. It becomes a reflection of the people it serves. And that is a powerful thing.
Of course, no anti-disinformation alliance is perfect. There are real risks and difficult questions. The most obvious danger is that the alliance could become another tool of censorship, used by governments to silence critics and protect their own lies. Throughout history, people have used “public safety” and “national security” as excuses to attack the press. If an alliance is funded or controlled by the state, it will lose all credibility. It may even become the very thing it is supposed to fight. That is why independence is everything. The alliance must be transparent about its methods and its funding. It must be willing to correct its own mistakes. It must be open to criticism, even when that criticism is uncomfortable. There is also the challenge of trust. Many people, especially in marginalised communities, do not trust journalists or fact-checkers. They have been lied to by institutions for generations. They may see the alliance as another elite project. To overcome this, the alliance has to go where people are, listen to their concerns, and earn their trust one conversation at a time. It cannot sit in a fancy office and tweet corrections. It has to be present, accessible, and humble. There is also the problem of resources. Fact-checking is expensive and time-consuming. It does not produce dramatic visuals or viral headlines. It rarely becomes a clickbait story. It is grinding, meticulous work that often goes unnoticed. Many excellent fact-checking organisations are underfunded and overworked. An alliance can help by pooling resources, but it cannot create money out of thin air. It needs public support, philanthropic funding, and perhaps revenue from platforms that have profited from misinformation for years. Another challenge is the sheer volume of content. No alliance can fact-check every single post. There will always be lies that slip through. The goal is not to achieve a perfect world where every claim is verified. The goal is to reduce the speed and reach of falsehoods, to give people better tools for discernment, and to create a culture where asking for proof is not seen as rude but as normal. That culture shift will not happen overnight. It will require patience, tough conversations, and a willingness to face our own biases.
In the end, the fight against fake news is not a war between robots. It is a human fight. It is about whether we still believe that truth matters, that facts matter, and that our words have consequences. I think about my aunt and that voice note about Eskom. She was not a villain. She was a worried woman who wanted to protect her family. The people who created and spread that lie were the villains. They used her anxiety as a weapon. They fed on her love. I don’t want to live in a world where love is weaponised. I don’t want to raise my children in a society where they cannot tell the difference between a real journalist and a paid liar. That is why I believe in the anti-disinformation alliance. Not because it is perfect, but because it is us. It is a promise that we will not leave truth to chance. It is a promise that when we see something suspicious, we will pause. When we see a correction, we will share it with the same passion we used to spread the lie. When we see a journalist or fact-checker doing honest work, we will support them, pay for their content, and defend them from attacks. It is also a promise to our leaders: we will not be fooled, we will not be scared, and we will not be divided by lies. We are not asking for the freedom to say anything. We are asking for the right to know what is true. And that right must be protected by all of us, together. So the next time a voice note lands in your inbox with a trembling voice and a terrifying warning, take a breath. Ask a question. Do not forward it. Do not let fear make the decision for you. In that tiny moment of pause, the alliance has already won. And if we all learn to pause, the lies will have no place to hide. That is the robust antidote. It is not a vaccine that works once. It is a daily practice of choosing truth. Let’s do it together.