Online disinformation or “fake news”, that is, false information strategically shared on the internet to cause harm, costs the global economy US$78 billion a year, with 84 percent of businesses around the world increasingly concerned. A false rumour could trigger a run on a bank, a sharp fall in share prices, or loss of interest in a company’s products. Global firms like Starbucks, Coca-Cola and Microsoft have been victims of online disinformation. In Starbucks’ case, bogus tweets about the coffee chain giving out free coffee to undocumented immigrants were posted anonymously by a disgruntled individual. For Coca-Cola, false news was circulated that one of its bottled water brands was infested with parasites. And in the case of Microsoft, lies were spread that its game console killed someone.
In Africa, where a lot of businesses depend on word-of-mouth, increasingly via social media, fake news could be even more devastating. This is because the continent’s dominant youth population, the main target of foreign and local businesses on the continent, get most of their news from the internet, especially social media. With such internet platforms also providing a very easy and relatively cheap means for users to weigh in on the news, it takes very little for any news or information of interest, whether true or not, to become dominant. Consequently, it is also easy for information to be manipulated to mischievous ends. Thus, online disinformation is increasingly a matter of great concern for African businesses as well.
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| Economic costs of disinformation | |
| Stock market losses & volatility | $39 billion |
| Financial misinformation (US) | $17 billion (per year) |
| Reputation management | $9.54 billion |
| Public health misinformation (US) | $9 billion |
| Online platform safety | $3 billion |
| Political spend | $400 million |
| Brand safety | $250 million |
| Total | $78 billion |
| Source: CHEQ |
While I use the terms “online disinformation” and “fake news” interchangeably, the latter is considered by some in academia to be inadequate; albeit either one is a form of “information pollution” or “information disorder”. The appropriation of the term “fake news” by politicians to describe news they disagree with is one reason why. More importantly, my focus is online disinformation, which is the sharing of false information on the internet with the intention to do harm, as opposed to misinformation, which similarly involves sharing false information but with no intention to do harm.
Much of the emphasis on online disinformation in the literature relates to politics. Online disinformation has been attributed for the victory of American president Donald Trump in the 2016 elections, for instance. Brexit, the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union, would probably not have succeeded without fake news, it is believed. There have also been instances of foreign attempts to influence some African elections via social media. But even as businesses are increasingly targets of disinformation, with sometimes devastating consequences, there is relatively less focus on their predicament in the literature and media; more so with respect to African firms. I aim to fill this gap by answering the following questions: How are African firms or foreign firms operating on the continent dealing with online disinformation? What strategies are most effective in combating corporate fake news in Africa? And what are the pitfalls African firms should avoid with respect to online disinformation?
The internet enables fake news…and platforms are best suited to curb it
Internet platforms make it easy for fake news to spread quickly in unprecedented ways. This is because there is little or no barrier to entry and internet platforms do not do as much as they should and could to combat online disinformation because of the economic benefits. “Fake news and other forms of information corruption have been perennial features of Google and Facebook’s online environments…[with]…countless examples of disinformation that survived and even thrived because it fulfilled economic imperatives”. According to Stengel (2019), social media platforms “benefit just as much from the sharing of content that is false as content that is true”. Even so, Zuboff (2019) asserts social media platforms have the tools to block fake news. Having failed to diligently self-regulate, however, there are growing calls for direct regulation by the authorities.
Interestingly, even big tech would not mind being regulated now – after much resistance hitherto – and have suggested frameworks that they reckon would be effective or perhaps self-serving; depending on who you ask. In mid-February 2020, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg called for regulation in four key areas: elections, harmful content, privacy and data portability. Of course, it is probably smart on his part to pre-empt what is increasingly inevitable. Regulators, like the European Union, do not find his proposals to be far-reaching enough, however. In any case, various internet regulatory regimes are being explored around the world. In the United Kingdom for instance, broadcasting regulator Ofcom has been handed an expanded role as internet watchdog, to predictably, some pushback from big tech firms; albeit it is still trying to figure out how it would do so effectively. A global internet regulatory framework, especially in regard of online disinformation, would probably be required at some point.
Edited version of article was first published by Nanyang Business School’s NTU-SBF Centre for African Studies.
References available via link viz. https//nbs.ntu.edu.sg/Research/ResearchCentres/CAS/Publications/Documents/NTU SBF%20CAS%20ACI%20Vol.%202020-17.pdf
Rafiq Raji
