The Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies will hold a two-day symposium from 29-30 August 2023 at the Tshedimosetso House in Hatfield, Pretoria. The symposium will discuss the impact of digital media misinformation, disinformation and content moderation ahead of the upcoming general elections in 2024.
On day one, Tuesday, 29 August 2023, the symposium will receive presentations from the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, Government Communications and Information Systems, Independent Electoral Commission, Films and Publications Board, South African Broadcasting Corporation, Media Development and Diversity Agency, National Association of Broadcasters, South African Communication Forum, as well as the Association of Comms and Technology. There will then be discussions in between presentations.
On day two, Wednesday, 30 August 2023, more industry players will make presentations, including Google, Meta, TickTok, Twitter, Media Monitoring Africa and Right2Know. Once again, there will be discussions in between presentations.
The committee aims to assess the state of readiness of the communication sector and its capacity to meet its mandate to disseminate information fairly in the run-up to the national and provincial government elections, including the measures it will take to guard against disseminating misinformation during future elections. The committee considers it necessary to interrogate the role played by social media network platforms in shaping the social fabric of the country and the Southern African Development Community and will engage with all digital media platforms to explore the environment within which they operate.
Next year, South Africans will head to the voting stations to elect their public representatives at provincial and national levels for the seventh time since the beginning of the country’s democratic dispensation. The emergence of digital communication platforms in the 21st century has transformed the communications landscape, including the way information is disseminated. With this transformation, however, the troubling power of disinformation campaigns also grew. In the interests of holding free and fair elections and to protect South Africa’s democracy in the digital age, Parliament must begin to debate the guidelines that will ensure fair and impartial communications during election cycles, notwithstanding the proliferation of digital communication platforms.
The symposium will cover various themes, including, amongst others, digital media platforms and their influence on the integrity of electoral processes in South Africa; the practical dangers posed by digital media platforms around user-data misappropriation and the measures put in place to protect digital media platform users; digital media platforms' self-regulation and the policies in place to promote the protection and personal privacy of the end-users; budget allocations for identifying misinformation by social network platforms for South Africa in contrast to profits generated in the country; as well as political advertising on digital media platforms. Members of the media are invited to attend the symposium.
