POLL WARNING OP-ED: Elections and the information integrity crisis: Why SA’s human rights body is taking action

The South African Human Rights Commission has issued a strong alert about disinformation ahead of local elections and called for mechanisms to safeguard information integrity as a precondition for rights.

Information integrity is vital for a functional democracy and recommendations to strengthen it include ensuring platform accountability and support for pluralistic and independent public interest media.

These two recommendations are among five listed in an SAHRC policy brief on Information Integrity and Human Rights, which has been released as the countdown begins for the 4 November local government elections.

Serving both as a warning and a framework for action, the SAHRC says disinformation is a structural threat and “constitutes a systemic human rights concern, with direct implications for life, dignity, equality and democratic participation”.

“Disinformation is dangerous for democracy because it distorts public debate, polarises society and hinders people’s ability to make informed choices free from interference and manipulation.”

Effective regulation of disinformation requires a shift from content-focused enforcement to systemic platform accountability, it said, recommending the development of measures that include transparency reporting and clearer obligations regarding algorithmic amplification and synthetic media, particularly in electoral and other high-risk contexts.

The SAHRC notes existing mechanisms through the Electoral Act that outlaw false information, and new attempts to give more teeth to these codes through a draft Electoral Code of Conduct on Countering Disinformation that includes enforcing retraction and correction of false information within 24 hours, and labelling of synthetic or AI-generated content for political adverts. The code applies to political parties, candidates and the electoral cycle, and does not impose systemic duties on digital platforms.

The three other “policy pathway” recommendations for South Africa are:

The establishment of a well-funded, coordinated early warning and rapid-response mechanism for high-risk periods, including elections;

A targeted review of legal frameworks to identify gaps, overlaps and risks of overreach; and

Sustained investment in public empowerment, digital literacy and civic education, including school-based interventions, public-sector training and community-level media literacy programmes.

A quick analysis of the SAHRC brief shows that it mirrors calls in the Johannesburg Declaration , which was adopted during the inaugural M20 (Media) Summit in South Africa in September last year – coinciding with President Cyril Ramaphosa’s hosting of the G20.

A rights-centred framework is a cornerstone of the M20 Declaration, which references human rights eight times. It notes that information integrity is both in crisis and essential to sustaining democracy.