Do you remember the bunker people from 1994?
I knew one of them – tannie Mabel Marais.
Even though I was only five years old at the time, something about tannie Mabel struck me as odd.
It could have been her ill-fitted dentures or her khaki military themed home (I cannot recall seeing as many guns mounted on a wall or army photos in one place anywhere else). Maybe it was the fact that she refused to listen to modern music and called it “die duiwel se lokaas” (the devil’s bait).
I have not seen tannie Mabel since April 27, 1994. It was the morning of South Africa’s first democratic elections. Tannie Mabel firmly believed that the election would result in mass genocide. To steer clear of risk, she would move to an unknown location for six weeks. Her husband’s 1970 Ford truck was stacked with non-perishables. They were ready for the Democratic Armageddon they believed was about to hit the country. We moved towns while they were… well, wherever they were… at the time.
Click here to read: Trek jou kruisie voor jy kla (Tannie Mabel, you too.)
The Marais family were not the only ones suffering from pre-election hysteria. Years later, Chicken Licken’s entertaining advertisement jokingly told the story of a fictitious 1994 bunker family who finally returned to society.
It is now 25 years later and one would think that South Africans have finally outgrown pre-election madness.
Unfortunately that presumption would be wrong. The era of social media enables racists and fearmongerers to go ballistic. Some compile WhatsApp messages warning different racial groups against each other. Quite a few messages allege that some political party is about to rob or otherwise harm South Africans.
Social media users are flooded with information and it has become difficult to determine what is real and what is fake. To add insult to injury, bots are making fools out of us. A bot (short for robot) is an automated program that runs online. Sometimes, they take the form of social media profiles. Internationally, we have seen bots meddle with elections. This is done, among other things, by sowing pre-election fear, polarisation and confusion.
Click here for more by the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab’s Ben Nimmo:
On bots and the dangers they pose to elections.
The term “fake news” was introduced by US president Donald Trump to describe untrue information posing as news. South Africans prefer the terms “misinformation” (negligently publishing untruths as news) and “disinformation” (intentionally publishing untruths as news). Misinformation and disinformation easily sway public opinion. This is dangerous – if the public’s opinion is formed according to untruths, we end up voting from an uninformed place and make important decisions based on lies.
This is why the responsibility to take a stand against pre-election hysteria, disinformation and misinformation belongs to all of us.
Africacheck provides guidelines according to which South Africans can determine whether a social media message contains true information.
Before you share content, ask these five questions:
- Who wrote it? If the author of a message does not attach his/her name to it, how to you know that it is reliable? Before you share, ask the sender who forwarded it to you where it comes from.
- Can the claims be verified? Messages with misinformation or disinformation do not typically attribute contents to trusted sources. The absence of sources should raise a red flag and stop you from sharing the content. In worst case scenarios, creators of fake news lie when attributing “facts” to credible sources. Google is a great fact checking tool. Africa Check also provides fact-checking services to the unsure. Ask for their help by sending your query to (+27) 073 749 7875 via WhatsApp.
- Scared or angry? You will note that some of these untrue messages evoke emotions of fear and anger. It polarises people from different groups, often based on prejudices. Sometimes, misinformation or disinformation portrays the government having harmed society through some fictitious criminal act or damaging policy. Do not share these types of content without having double checked the allegations and facts.
- Shocking multimedia. Sometimes shocking images, video or audio are used to trick social media users. A cyber troll will, for example, take footage from an American shooting and state that it happened in South Africa. Do not share online content without having checked the facts – see paragraph 2.
- “Is this a hoax?” When a WhatsApp or social media message reaches you and you are at all unsure about its legitimacy, use the methods in paragraph 2 to confirm. You can also visit fact checking websites like Africacheck.org or Snopes.com.
The Independent Electoral Commission of South Africa has set up a portal where misinformation and disinformation relating to the elections can be reported. Click here for more.
We will be voting in five days. Let’s all keep an eye out for fake pre-election hysteria and nip it in the bud.
Oh, and VOTE ON MAY 8! It is your duty and privilege. #Imademymark
Also read: How to spot online fakers
