28 September 2020, Daily Maverick, Thandi Smith and William Bird
Through the Real411 platform, Media Monitoring Africa has been tracking disinformation trends on digital platforms since the end of March.
Using the Real411 platform, we have analysed disinformation trends which have largely focused on Covid-19. To date, the platform has received 733 complaints, of which 710 have been assessed and action taken. Of the complaints about disinformation (555), 45% have been found to be disinformation.
Over the last several weeks, we have looked at selected examples and trends. In this piece we look at some of the factors that make disinformation both easy and challenging to identify and combat, and at another element that often works to facilitate disinformation: echo chambers.