4 August 2025, SABC News
Media Monitoring Africa has also raised concern about the use of social media influencers in political campaigns.
Bird has cautioned that their involvement could jeopardise democratic processes. “Politicians and political parties globally are using both influencers and micro influencers to spread their messages, but also to undermine other political parties. When you have that kind of network, ordinary people will see particular kinds of information. If you are then paying influencers to spread particular messages while targeting people, it is going to affect their ability to make an informed choice.”