You know the type. They wear their conference lanyards like clerical collars. They are the policy advisers, NGO staffers, university administrators, and professional opinion-shapers who have decided that the greatest threat to modern democracy is not poverty, war, or inequality, but the existence of information they don’t like. We hear endlessly from these people about the terrible harm caused by “mis- and disinformation.” It is supposedly the reason we have anti-migration protests, the reason people are skeptical about climate policy, the reason democracy itself is wobbling. But if you listen closely, you’ll notice an odd assumption running through all their…

The recent local government elections in South Africa were meant to be a testament to the nation’s democratic resilience, yet they unfolded against a disorienting backdrop of digital deception. As the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC) meticulously tallied millions of ballots from over 23,000 voting stations, a parallel, shadowy count was happening online. Across the vibrant ecosystems of TikTok, X, and Facebook, the air thickened not with the promise of civic renewal, but with a cacophony of suspicion, fabricated headlines, and out-of-context clips. The flood of misinformation moved with a speed that outpaced the painstaking work of the official…