March 31, 2021

Disinformation in a time of Covid-19: What’s in a definition?

MMA in the media
By Yinhla Ngobeni 89 Comments

28 March 2021, Daily Maverick, Thandi Smith and William Bird

Through Real411, Media Monitoring Africa has been tracking disinformation trends on digital platforms since the end of March 2020. Last week we had the good fortune to talk about disinformation at the South African Internet Governance Forum, as well as during a workshop hosted by CST and DFRLab.

One of the central issues raised was just how tricky it is to deal with disinformation across the various platforms, not just because of its different forms but how the term is or isn’t used, and what actions can be taken. The big platforms have also been strongly criticised for their role in the spread of disinformation. This week we look at how the big social media platforms define disinformation and see if we can make any sense of it.

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