In recent years, the UKs Oxford Internet Institute has tracked the manipulation of public opinion online.

Since 2018, South Africa has featured on a growing list of countries where social media is used to spread disinformation and computational propaganda. Twitter is a prominent platform for social media manipulation in South Africa, the institutefound.

In this three-part series, fact-checking organisationAfrica Checkand the Atlantic Councils Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) take a closer look at disinformation on Twitter in South Africa.

Part one focuses on disinformation actors, their behaviour and content. In part two,the hashtag is examined and just how much damage it can cause?Part three gives advice on how to deal with disinformation on social media.

Anatomy of a disinformation campaign | The who, what and why of deliberate falsehoods on Twitter (Part 1)

The recently released 2020 edition of the Oxford Internet Institutes Global Inventory of Organised Social Media Manipulation identified77 countries where government or political party actors used disinformation on social media to manipulate public opinion. South Africa is among them, writes Liesl Pretorius.

Anatomy of a disinformation campaign | Any harm in a hashtag? Spotting disinformation in the wild (Part 2)

Unlike the spreaders of misinformation, who dont mean harm, disinformation actors knowingly cause damage to people, social groups, organisations and even countries. In the second of a three-part series examining falsehoods on Twitter,Jean le Rouxsorts misinformation from disinformation in three popular hashtags.

Anatomy of a disinformation campaign | How to avoid traps on Twitter (Part 3)

Bell Pottingeris dead, but disinformation that preys on divisions in South Africa remains. Some say social media users should ignore disinformation the deliberate spread of false information to cause harm because any engagement helps malicious actors spread their messages. But is doing nothing really the only option, particularly when disengagementis what some of these campaigns hope to achieve?Liesl Pretoriuslooked for answers.

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Anatomy of a disinformation campaign | The manipulation game on Twitter - News24