#SAVotes2024:TikTok launches election hub to curb misinformation

The Elections Hub launched on Monday and can be accessed in six local languages including South African sign language.

The initiative ropes in other leading civil organisations like Africa Check and the South African Human Rights Commission.

“This information that has been shared by the IEC as part of their voter education drive. We also have content around digital literacy, as you may be aware, the issue of misinformation and disinformation is a concern for people going into this election.

“We partnered with Africa Check to produce some very engaging content educating our users about how not to post or become inadvertently involved in spreading misinformation,” TikTok's Public Policy and Government Relations Director Fortune Mgwili-Sibanda elaborated.

TikTok has also collaborated with 18 global fact-checking partners to evaluate the accuracy of content across over 50 languages. In South Africa, they have partnered with Code for Africa.

The commission’s chief electoral officer Sy Mamabolo participated in the panel discussion hosted by TikTok about the election hub and said that young people, who tend to access their news via social media first, will play a critical role in the May polls.

The IEC reported a record number of young people registering to vote in the upcoming general elections.

“We’ve seen a high registration of young persons for these elections, driven by the online registration portal. Our statistics tell us that young people, when registered, tend to participate in higher proportions compared to other groups.

So, we do think that young persons are going to play a key role in the election process.”

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TikTok’s Mgwili-Sibanda said a similar drive during the 2021 local government elections saw more than 90 million engagements.

As part of its policy, the app also does not allow paid political advertising.

“For us the important thing is protecting the integrity of our platform, especially during important civic processes such as elections. But, also helping to protect the importance of the election itself. We are aware that what is shared on social media platforms may influence the democratic process.”

Meanwhile, media expert and Director at Media Monitoring Africa William Bird said traditional media must redefine itself in the face of past paced, alternative news-sharing platforms.

“The role of media organisations now is that it’s no longer about breaking the news, it’s now about verifying the news and telling [the audience] ‘is this real and did it happen?’ and ‘what are the relevant people saying about it?’ and critically, ‘how do we understand this?’ – explaining that news to us.”

Despite various platforms using different methods to minimize harm and curb fake news, social media users are still encouraged to verify the content access before sharing it and are discouraged from creating misleading content.