Media Freedom Festival tackles impact of disinformation on children

The first session of the Media Freedom Festival unpacked disinformation and its impact on children.
Media Monitoring Africa (MMA) hosted a panel of speakers to discuss disinformation through the eyes of children at the Goethe Institut South Africa in Parkwood on October 19.

Director at MMA, William Bird said children made up 10% of the news but they were constantly marginalised. Media specialist Jeremy Maggs said misinformation and disinformation have become pressing issues with a unique impact on young people.

Distinguishing between misinformation and disinformation
Ndalo Dlamini, an ambassador of Web Rangers, a digital literacy programme that allows young people to gain critical digital literacy skills and knowledge around online safety, provided definitions of these two terms. Dlamini said, “Misinformation is false information that is spread, regardless of intent, to mislead. Disinformation is defined as false, inaccurate or misleading information designed, presented and promoted to intentionally cause public harm.”

ALSO READ: Goethe Institut hosts media freedom festival

How disinfomation manifests:
Programme manager of public and media skills development at MMA, Phakamile Madonsela said disinformation manifested itself on platforms such as WhatsApp accompanied by an element of fear. Adding to that, the senior manager of government affairs and public policy at Google South Africa, Abongile Mashele said disinformation was seen regarding Covid-19, load-shedding and elections in different jurisdictions.

“These falsehoods being shared in the media have always been there but back then it was not easy for an individual to put their information on a media platform and have it widely accessible. There were systems of fact-checking back then but now with online platforms, it’s easy to have my opinion, share it and have it propagated as the truth,” said Mashele.

Mashele added disinformation could potentially destabilise communities or even a country if the information shared was impactful enough to change people’s views i.e. during elections.

Way forward in curbing disinformation
Tech rights fellow at ALT Advisory, Christy Chitengu said they had published a discussion document titled Disinformation through a children’s rights lens. “The intention behind it was to encourage children to engage with information online in a way that doesn’t invoke fear and doesn’t limit their engagement. The reason we focused on children is because of the proliferation of social media, with everyone having access to smartphones and information online, disinformation is becoming increasingly more sophisticated. So, we want to empower children and people in positions of power to critically engage with stakeholders and see how we can come up with how to keep children safe online,” said Chitengu.

Infographic:
How disinformation can be regulated:

• Introspect one’s role as a media user and think about how your post affects your followers and the community.
• Government, non-governmental organisations and companies need to put in place the necessary mechanisms to curb disinformation.
• Use social media more for good than for negativity.
• Decide on a source of truth as a people and refer to it before making decisions to share information.
• Tech companies are encouraged to support efforts to equip children with digital literacy resources and training.
• Tech companies need to create tools within their platforms to address online harm.
• Media literacy could be added to the national school curriculum.
• If something seems too good to be true or too dramatic, send it to Africa Check for verification.

Filler: Engage with us on Twitter @RK_Gazette