As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc in our country, those who seek to cause confusion, chaos and public harm have powerful tools of misinformation and disinformation to do just that. This week, we look at what happens to the work done by Real411 and answer some questions we have been asked.
William Bird is director of Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) and Thandi Smith heads the Policy & Quality Programme at MMA, a partner in the 411 platform to counter disinformation.
The Real411 platform has been receiving complaints related to disinformation, hate speech, incitement to violence and harassment of journalists since March 2020. Over the past week or two, we have received a number of questions about how Real411 works, what happens once a complaint has been assessed and how credible the system is. We thought it would be a good opportunity to address some of the key questions below.
So, the Real411 combats disinformation – how exactly does it do this?
Zweli Mkhize must take full responsibility for Digital Vibes debacle
By Opinion
By Marlan Padayachee
Durban: During the colourful pomp and ceremony decked out to visiting French President Emmanuel Macron, his host President Cyril Ramaphosa paraded his Cabinet ministers â including his under-fire Health Minister Dr Zweli Lawrence Mkhize, who side-stepped being quizzed by the media about how his close comrades and friends picked up a whopping R150-million Covid-19 and National Health Insurance irregular procurement deal.
The European Union leader was at the Union Buildings last week, to also discuss, among major bilateral deals, the Paris-Pretoria protocol on how France could help SA and Africa get out of the vaccine shortage cul-de-sac.
Political communications specialist Chris Vick says it's disappointing that President Cyril Ramphosa did not address the Digital Vibes scandal on Sunday night.
At least 56,000 people – that we know of – have died since Covid-19 hit South Africa in early 2020. We can only imagine how many of those lives could have been saved if they had had access to credible public health information from government.