The death of fact-checking is a global crisis

Over the past five years, far-right actors in the United States have mounted a relentless war on fact-checking.

What began as a fringe grievance has morphed into a coordinated campaign to discredit, defund and dismantle efforts to counter disinformation.

The strategy is simple: cry censorship, launch lawsuits and harass those who work to separate truth from fiction. The consequences are global and South Africans should take note.

At the onset of the Covid pandemic, tech giants like YouTube, Facebook and Twitter (now X) collaborated with researchers to curb the spread of falsehoods.

Social media platforms introduced fact-checking mechanisms, flagging false claims and, in extreme cases, removing harmful content.

Then came the backlash. Some time in 2020, a coalition of bad-faith actors – led by figures like Representative Jim Jordan – began railing against so-called Big Tech censorship, particularly in the lead-up to the US presidential election. Conservative media outlets amplified these claims, reframing fact-checking as an ideological weapon wielded against right-wing voices.

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Later on, the focus had shifted. Now, it wasn’t just Big Tech under fire, but also the researchers studying falsehoods.

Groups like the America First Legal Foundation and the Conservative Partnership Institute – backed by Trump administration insiders – mobilised to provide legal and political muscle to the cause. Their goal? To intimidate, investigate and litigate fact-checkers out of existence.

US Congress, too, became a tool in this war. The House Weaponisation Subcommittee, chaired by Jordan, became a megaphone for baseless claims of censorship. The subcommittee launched investigations and legal challenges against researchers.

Meanwhile, the so-called “Twitter Files” – a series of curated leaks alleging widespread censorship – were riddled with inconsistencies and factual errors, but nonetheless fuelled the anti-fact-checking crusade.

The impact has been devastating. Researchers and organisations dedicated to countering falsehoods have faced harassment, legal threats, and congressional subpoenas.

Under pressure, Big Tech began scaling back its commitment to fact-checking.

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Meta, Facebook’s parent company, ended its US fact-checking programme, citing concerns over “censorship”. LinkedIn as well as Alphabet, which owns Google and YouTube, quietly scaled back their efforts. Some observers see these moves as a calculated effort to curry favour with President Donald Trump.

When Trump took office again in 2025, Silicon Valley’s titans – including Musk (X), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta), Tim Cook (Apple), and Shou Zi Chew (TikTok – attended his inauguration. Among the scores of executive orders that Trump signed on that very same day, one is directly aimed at “restoring freedom of speech and ending federal censorship”.

Trends that should alarm South Africans

• First, the American far right is exporting its model abroad. African researchers and organisations combating disinformation could soon find themselves targeted by political inquiries and lawsuits. With the Trump administration reviewing foreign aid programmes, it wouldn’t be surprising if nongovernmental organisations promoting democracy, including media-monitoring organisations, find themselves on the chopping block.
• Second, Silicon Valley’s retreat from fact-checking will inevitably affect global users, including South Africans. Without oversight, social media platforms will become fertile ground for disinformation campaigns.
• Third – and most critically – the AI revolution is making the spread of disinformation easier, and more convincing. No longer do bad actors like the Kremlin need to operate sprawling troll farms; artificial intelligence can now manufacture realistic falsehoods with unprecedented efficiency. Hyper-realistic AI-generated videos and text blur the line between fact and fiction, making it harder than ever for the average consumer to discern reality.
• Fourth, beyond the battles in Silicon Valley and Washington, South Africans are already vulnerable to misinformation and foreign propaganda, sometimes with life and death consequences.

Beijing has invested heavily in African media, funding outlets and training journalists to push Chinese narratives, often distorting the truth.

Meanwhile, Russia has ramped up its disinformation operations across the continent. According to the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, disinformation campaigns targeting African societies have nearly quadrupled since 2022, the year Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The think-tank warns disinformation is closely linked to instability, fuelling violence, legitimising coups and shielding corruption.

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Unchecked, these developments will flood the information ecosystem with falsehoods, weakening democracies worldwide. In the absence of ethical guidelines that prioritise positive freedom, the digital space will become a battleground for competing narratives, many of them false and dangerous.

Moreover, disinformation is designed to exploit divisions between people. It foments “othering,” a process of promoting an “us versus them” mentality.

In a multicultural society like South Africa, this is particularly dangerous. Disinformation can deepen racial, ethnic and political divides, increasing social tensions and undermining national unity.

Disinformation doesn’t just distort facts – it corrodes democracy itself. It fosters mistrust, sows division and erodes faith in institutions.

Liberal democracy – governance rooted in the rule of law, checks and balances and fundamental freedoms – becomes an easy target. When people can no longer distinguish truth from propaganda, the foundation of democratic governance begins to crack.

• South Africans must recognise their agency in this fight. The choice is stark: either accept the far-right’s vision of unregulated speech and the proliferation of falsehoods, or join forces with pro-fact-checking coalitions to push back.

A collective approach, aligning with European and democratic allies, would be far more effective than individual nations attempting to hold Silicon Valley accountable.

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• Secondly, South Africa should adopt a “whole-of-society” approach to resilience, as seen in the Nordic-Baltic states. This means integrating critical thinking into education, not by prescribing which sources to distrust, but by teaching people from a young age how to analyse information critically.

• Finally, investment in fact-checking organisations and the protection of these institutions is vital. Without them, disinformation will fester unchecked.

Fact-checking is not about censorship – it’s about protecting the integrity of public discourse. Without it, propaganda and misinformation will thrive, science will suffer, and democracies will weaken. In a world where the truth is increasingly up for debate, defending it has never been more urgent.

• Hartwell is a senior associate at London School of Economics and a senior fellow at the Centre for European Policy Analysis in Washington