Growing concerns over misinformation and fake news
SA news consumers are increasingly concerned about misinformation and the spreading of fake news, a new report on digital media trends shows.
Concern about misinformation increased by six percentage points in the past year and is now at 81%, according to the 2024 Reuters Digital News Report.
The Mail & Guardian reports that this is significantly higher than the global average concern about misinformation, which is at 59%.
The report says interest in politics has also dwindled to 70% from 81% in 2021, not ideal for a country that held general elections on 29 May.
‘Mis and disinformation has played a part, as has the proliferation of competing information sources, including those that are purely misinformation for profit aggregators,’ said Chris Roper, the deputy chief executive at Code for Africa, a nonprofit African network of digital democracy laboratories and data journalism that contributed to the report.
The report highlights that mistrust in the SA media is also driven by squabbles between news organisations.
‘Some compromised news organisations continue to produce and disseminate misinformation, resulting in an unedifying to and fro between media titles, with the most obvious example being Independent Media’s ongoing publishing of misinformation about News24 and Daily Maverick, apparently in retaliation for investigative pieces by those titles,’ Roper said in the report.
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