Countering Disinformation and Vaccine Hesitancy

Fostering resilience to Covid-19 disinformation in Sub-Saharan Africa by countering online narratives that undermine recovery efforts and threaten public health.

Associate Professor Camaren Peter (PhD), Director and Executive Head of CABC, Associate Professor in the Allan Gray Centre for Values-Based Leadership, Graduate School of Business, University of Cape Town. 

The challenge of countering online mis/disinformation during Covid-19 extends from global to local level. Developed countries have been hamstrung by online social media mis/disinformation and conspiracy theories pertaining to Covid-19. This is being exploited by actors seeking to manipulate the crisis for personal/political gain. 

Covid-19 disinformation has taken root in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly relating to vaccine hesitancy/scepticism. In Tanzania, vaccine hesitancy is sanctioned by the government, indicating the scale of the threat to the region. Elsewhere across the continent, conspiracist narratives have proliferated.

Safeguarding public health through widespread vaccination and adhering to Covid-19 protocols is key to restoring the economic and social life that underpins social cohesion and preventing further waves of infections/deaths. Uneven global vaccine adoption threatens to prolong the crisis by introducing new variants, presenting a global threat to public health.

Smart phone ownership in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Senegal, Nigeria and Tanzania is dominated by the 18-29 year segment (180 million in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2015). This segment is hence central to the spread of online disinformation and harmful narratives. Conversely, they can be leveraged to amplify credible and reliable messaging relating to Covid-19, as well as act as an influencer base to counter mis/disinformation. 

The primary target is young, working-age people who will continue commuting, studying, working and recreating during the pandemic. The intervention is a targeted messaging campaign that leverages advanced social media analytics to counter Covid-19 mis/dis-information to help bring about the broader behavioural change that is required for the protection of society as a whole.

Unlike traditional media outlet’s attempts at blanket messaging, typically government funded, our intervention will be informed by insights gleaned from advanced social media and network analytics, rigorous academic research on motivations for sharing health disinformation in this age segment (particularly through interviews and focus groups), in addition to civil society and expert opinion specific. The targeted segment will effectively act as a catalyst for broader societal behavioural change due to their high smart phone penetration rates.

By identifying and dialoguing with social media influencers in this segment we will support them in amplifying protagonist messaging that is based on reliable, credible information, and is affective, compelling and engaging at the same time.

By targeting social media influencers in this segment across multiple platforms, alongside traditional media, we can guarantee widespread circulation within a broader ecosystem that can amplify protagonist Covid-19 messaging beyond this segment itself. 

This project will focus on;(1) seeding and catalysing behavioural change to mitigate against the spread of Covid-19 mis/disinformation, and (2) fostering national and pan-African unity and identity building in this moment of great uncertainty by leveraging key insights to produce creative, affective messaging that promotes a sense of unity and cohesion amidst crisis.

Hence several clear immediate areas relating to the public good can be identified. First, safeguarding public health during the pandemic. Second, stimulating broader scale behavioural change in support Covid-19 recovery efforts, which in turn will help restore social and economic life and recovery. Third, by promoting a sense of unity amidst crisis we hope to foster pan-African relations and improve coordination in efforts to recover from the pandemic. Fourth, with this project as a basis, we will be well poised to tackle other emergencies – whether global or regional – that threaten the well-being of societies on the continent (e.g. other public health emergencies, disasters, social ills such as gender-based violence,etc.).

We also play a role in policy research – as part of the Global Digital Human Rights Network – and will contribute to the policy discourse on the regulation of the digital sphere in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The targeted segment possesses a particularly keen sense of their social status and acceptability. By drawing on in-depth insights obtained from social media analytics, which is then put through a sense-making process where narratives and micro-narratives are analysed using expert and academic input, we will develop the affective insights that will enable us to leverage the segment effectively on social media. Insights into the segment will be continuously refined by conducting focus groups, surveys, interviews to assess the extent to which interventions have resulted in real-world behavioural change.

We will hence develop a bank of citizen activists using social media analytics to identify a wide range of social media users that aligned with protagonist objectives. We engage, upskill, and provide them with tools and content, and either support or draw them into the conversation, expanding the conversation, breaking echo-chambers and significantly reducing mid/disinformation and its impacts. This approach has served us well in countering online xenophobia in South African (a critical national problem). When a coordinated xenophobic network sprang up to over 30,000 mentions in a month we developed an intervention strategy that expanded the conversation to 80,000 mentions but critically, shifted the conversation from 90% to 40% xenophobic.

Our work is inherently scalable. Our South African projects already engage millions of people through the media. Our interventions directly engage tens of thousands of people.

In respect of this project, we will build in a continuous monitoring component that enables us to obtain deeper insights into the segment and what motivates their social media presences. Building on this learning we will become more effective at targeting and recruiting this segment. In this respect the pilot project funded by Impact Amplifier will give us a head start in understanding what works and what doesn’t in respect of interventions. In year one the main goal will be to consolidate insights, networks and secure a Pan-African presence.

We also seek to leverage our partnership with Code4Africa, who have an extensive African network of analysts and journalists working in different contexts, to strengthen our local interventions over the course of the project, particularly in year 2 and 3. We will also draw on our Cambridge partnership to leverage an extensive African network of epidemiologists and public health experts to refine and strengthen our interventions over the project. This is particularly important as sensitivity to local context is key to success in different regions.

Impact and Outcomes:

Intermediate Outcomes:

1. Harmful online narratives are identified, analyzed, followed and reported on. 

2. Responding with compelling counternarratives and content.

3. Promoting inclusive online activist communities

4. Tools and methods for analysing, tracking and reporting on disinformation are developed and shared 

Long-term Outcomes:

1. A reduction in the effects of divisive online activity, particularly hate speech and disinformation

2. Cultivating online social awareness and discernment

3. Greater public capacity to identify and counter disinformation globally

4. An actively engaged community of practice / network of partners shares practices and methods 

Impact: Limit the growth of radicalised (divisive and hateful) socio-political movements; the emergence of healthier online public discourse and engagement; a reduction in social prejudice and discrimination 

CABC is still growing its global network. We are working with Code4Africa and other partners to build relationships internationally.

The costs of social media analytics grow considerably as we expand to other countries and conversations.

CABC needs expand our donor base and develop reliable and long-term institutional funding and other project pipelines to become sustainable in the long-term.

CABC can address a range of different themes and topics using its approach, and methodology can be applied to a variety of causes. The challenge is to ensure expert engagement in each. To address this we partner with relevant expert bodies/organisations. For example, the South African Tuberculosis Vaccine Initiative works with us on countering vaccine hesitancy.

Political decision-making is hamstrung by the need to satisfy a broad range of interests, all of which are driven by different narratives, many of them on social media. We hence avoid becoming involved in socially and politically charged narratives. In this context, when making decisions, we hold to our sole purpose, which is underpinned by supporting (South African) constitutionality and upholding the basic values of society. This is also aligned with working against social division, allowing for more coordinated decision-making and action.

University of Cape Town/GSB-based partnerships with SATVI and Eh!Wosa; Partnership with Code4Africa.

Research Collaboration: Cambridge University, Minnesota University

African Alliance

The South African Department of Health

Media Partners include: Media Monitoring Africa, Azania Mosaka show on 702 with ATVI, Daily Maverick, City Press, Carte Blache 

In our short existence, CABC has gained a great deal of knowledge into how to identify narrative manipulation and counter it. Our main goal is to expand our reach into a variety of conversations (e.g. climate change denialism, sustainability oriented solutions, gender and youth, and where shifting narratives is needed) and to scale up our operations across Sub-Saharan Africa in particular. To this end, we have invested in up skilling staff and refocused staff to key projects for our core funding.

The Trinity Challenge would enable CABC to become a global leader in this space over the next 3 years and develop a proper pan-African network upon which we can build to establish global reach. It will help us establish and demonstrate our capability to undertake large campaigns across a variety of thematic areas. The funding will also enable us to conduct in-depth social media and network analytics and improve our data-analytics strategy, particularly to bring down costs. Last, working in different regions where different contextual specificities present will enable us to improve and refine how we deal with differing political contexts and social identities.

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We seek to partner with organisations that can elevate CABC's brand as experts in the mis/disinformation space globally. Partnerships for funding, research, expertise, or delivery would all add value. The success of our work depends on partnerships and collaboration with those who share our values. Through collaboration we learn, share expertise and grow together. We find strength in the sum of our knowledge, practices and diverse experiences.

Examples include:

Stanford Internet Observatory - they are already in the global digital human rights space and have conducted extensive work into disinformation in Africa.

University of Cambridge -We already partner but would love to grow this, particularly to leverage the Africa-wide network of public health experts on the continent.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - We are in continual conversations and have submitted a funding proposal.

Google – We have an indirect relationship through Impact Amplifier but are hoping to build on this, particularly as Google has extensive impact on how information is disseminated around the world.

Twitter – We are keen to establish relations with Twitter, particularly around coordinated disinformation campaigns that seek to destabilise nation states.