There is something quietly unsettling about knowing that a lie is out there, but not being entirely sure you would recognise it if you saw it. That is where many South Africans now find themselves, and it is not a comfortable place to be. Public confidence in the ability to identify disinformation is falling, and it is falling at exactly the moment when the tools used to spread falsehoods are becoming smarter, faster and more personal. South Africa is heading towards local government elections on 4 November that are expected to be among the most fiercely contested in years, and the risk of manipulated information shaping what people believe and how they vote is real. That is why the Electoral Commission of South Africa’s new code of conduct against election disinformation matters. Gazetted on 4 September, the Electoral Code of Conduct Countering Disinformation in the Local Government Elections — known simply as the Disinformation Code — gives the electoral process a legal framework to push back against dishonest political messaging. It is not just a piece of paperwork. It is a public promise that elections should be decided by facts, not by coordinated deception. The timing could not be more urgent. Many people now say they are less confident about spotting fake news than they were only a couple of years ago. More troubling still, only a small number of people regularly check whether the information they are about to share is true. In a democracy, the right to vote is precious, but it depends on the ability to vote with a clear understanding of what is true and what is not.
According to the IEC’s latest Voter Participation Survey, the proportion of South Africans who describe themselves as confident in recognising fake news has dropped from 62% in 2023 to 52% in 2025/26. That is a significant decline, and it suggests that people are becoming more aware of how difficult it is to separate fact from fiction in a crowded information environment. What makes it more worrying is that only 18% of respondents say they regularly verify election-related information before liking, sharing or reposting it. In other words, most people are not deliberately spreading lies, but many are passing along information without pause, often simply because it appeared in a trusted group or came from someone they know. The same survey shows that traditional media still play a major role in shaping how South Africans vote, with 71% of respondents relying on television and 38% on radio for voting information. But social media is gaining ground rapidly. The number of people who say they use social media as a source of election-related information has nearly tripled, rising from 8% in 2021 to 23% now. That shift may not yet make social media the dominant source of news, but it cannot be ignored. South Africans are spending more time online than almost anyone else in the world, with an average of nine hours and 37 minutes online every day in 2025, including roughly three and a half hours on social media. That is a staggering amount of exposure to information, and it means voters are encountering political claims constantly. Yet greater access to information has not translated into stronger verification habits. If anything, the opposite seems to be happening: people are overwhelmed, and in that overwhelm, falsehoods often thrive.
What makes this election cycle especially dangerous is not just the volume of disinformation, but the way it is becoming more targeted. In the past, election lies were often broad and national, aimed at damaging a party or a leader across the whole country. Now, according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2026, misinformation and disinformation are among the top risks facing societies around the world. In South Africa, the concern is increasingly about what the IEC chairperson, Mosotho Moepya, has called “ward-specific deceptions.” Speaking at the Disinformation Dialogue 2026, Moepya warned that the upcoming elections would likely see a shift from national misinformation to hyper-local campaigns driven by generative artificial intelligence and tailored to specific communities. This is a different kind of threat. A lie about your own ward, your own street, your own school or a candidate who lives near you can feel far more immediate and credible than a national rumour. Research by the Institute for Security Studies supports this concern. Disinformation and political messaging are becoming increasingly localised, aimed at particular communities and voter groups. Community WhatsApp groups and Facebook pages have become central spaces for political conversation at ward and municipal level. In those spaces, information travels quickly, often through friends, family members and trusted neighbours, and verification is rarely more than a bit of rumour and emotion. The intimacy of these spaces makes them powerful. They can genuinely build community and bring people into political discussion. But they can also become echo chambers for falsehoods, especially when no one stops to challenge a suspicious post or ask where the information came from before forwarding it.
At the same time, political parties are investing heavily in digital campaigning, and the online landscape is becoming more complicated by the day. Institute for Security Studies research shows that online political advertising and influencer-driven campaigning are becoming increasingly important parts of election strategies. These tools can engage young voters, spread policy messages and make politics feel closer to everyday life. But they also blur the line between real political discussion, paid promotion and coordinated influence operations. It is often impossible for an ordinary voter to know whether a post they see is an organic opinion, a sponsored advertisement, or part of a deliberate campaign to manipulate their perception of a candidate. Artificial intelligence is making all of this harder. South Africa has not yet experienced a major election crisis linked to deepfakes, but that should not be a reason for comfort. AI-generated content is becoming cheaper, more accessible and harder to detect. A fake audio clip of a candidate saying something damaging can be produced in minutes and spread across multiple platforms before anyone has time to check it. By the time a denial is released, the damage has already been done. This means that information integrity can no longer be treated as just a media issue. It is now part of what it means to be a citizen, to participate in democracy, and to hold power accountable. Technology, of course, is not inherently the problem. It can be used to spread harmful falsehoods, but it can also be used to help voters access accurate information. The challenge South Africa faces is making sure that the tools designed to strengthen democratic participation evolve just as quickly as the technologies being used to manipulate it.
Much of the public conversation around disinformation tends to focus on individual social media users, and it is true that each of us has a responsibility to pause before sharing. But verification cannot be left entirely to ordinary citizens. Professional and legacy media journalists remain one of democracy’s most important lines of defence against false and misleading information. They have the time, the training and the obligation to investigate claims, provide context and test competing narratives before those narratives reach the public. When a rumour explodes on WhatsApp, it is often a journalist who picks up the phone and asks the difficult questions. When a candidate is accused of something online, it is journalism that can tell the difference between a smear and a scandal. That is not to say the media are perfect, but they are essential. They help create a shared foundation of fact in a world that increasingly lacks one. Social media platforms also have a role to play. As political parties and candidates face greater expectations to take responsibility for the information they share, platforms should strengthen their responses to election-related disinformation. They cannot hide behind the excuse of being neutral conduits. They make choices about what to amplify, what to suppress and what to allow to spread. Those choices have consequences for democracy. The IEC chairperson has made it clear that breaches of the Disinformation Code carry the same legal consequences as violations of the core Electoral Code of Conduct, which adds weight to the responsibility of anyone involved in political communication. But there is also a need to look beyond the election itself. The Disinformation Code remains in force only until the election results are declared, yet the problem of disinformation does not simply disappear once the votes are counted. Allegations of vote rigging after the 2024 elections showed how quickly false narratives can take hold and linger, long after the official outcome has been certified. South Africa therefore needs long-term information integrity solutions that extend well beyond election season.
Safeguarding local democracy is a shared responsibility, but citizens are an important first line of defence. In a way, the most powerful responses to disinformation are often the smallest and most human. It might be challenging a suspicious post in a community WhatsApp group instead of letting it pass. It might be helping a family member verify a candidate’s claim before they reshare it. It might simply be taking a breath before forwarding something that makes you angry or afraid, asking yourself whether the source is reliable and whether the person who sent it actually knows it to be true. These small, deliberate actions may not seem like much on their own, but together they can strengthen democratic resilience in ways that are difficult to measure but impossible to overstate. With six weeks left before voting starts, South Africans need access to information they can trust. That requires a sustained commitment to verification from political parties, institutions, media organisations, social media platforms and citizens alike. No single law, algorithm or campaign can fix the deeper problem of weakened public trust. But a society that refuses to accept disinformation as normal, and that builds habits of checking, questioning and caring about the truth, is far harder to manipulate. Democracy has always depended on more than just elections. It depends on people being able to talk to one another honestly, to hear each other’s concerns, and to decide together what kind of future they want. In the weeks ahead, that may matter more than any single headline. The quiet work of being careful with what we share, respectful of what we do not know, and brave enough to question what feels wrong might be the most important protection South Africa has.