By Mkhululi Chimoio
Zimbabwe’s political discourse and conversations about the state of governance in the country have come under attack, and the faith of the public in mainstream media has waned as a result of information disorder – misinformation, disinformation and malinformation – that has led to the rise and rapid transmission of false narratives, making it much harder for citizens to identify where fact ends and fiction begins.
Despite the presence of the Cyber and Data Protection Act, which sets standards for online interactions and information exchanges, the law is difficult to enforce, due to the borderless nature of the internet, and the limited capacity of the relevant authorities to operationalize it. This is compounded by the rise of technology-driven information disorder that uses deep fakes and synthetic media, which are scenarios that the framers of the act could not possibly envision.
As such, it is increasingly difficult for the public to discern what is real and what is not, and loopholes exist that the law is unable to adequately address.
Digital Weaknesses and the Role of Technology
This vulnerability is attributed to a number of factors, including low digital literacy, reliance on information, and poor regulation frameworks. These offer a fertile environment for false information to flourish, as Professor Vusumuzi Maphosa, Director of Information and Communication Technology Services at the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), explains.
“Zimbabwe’s digital weaknesses such as limited digital literacy, reliance on unchecked social media, and weak regulatory frameworks make it vulnerable to disinformation,” Professor Maphosa asserts. “Solutions exist in technology”, Professor Maphosa adds, “but solving these requires multi-stakeholder intervention.”
He cites the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for fact-checking, the launch of digital literacy initiatives, and strategic collaborations to curb the impacts of false information as likely ways through which information disorder can be addressed in Zimbabwe, but he also stresses that these interventions need a framework .
“The Cyber and Data Protection Act sets a legal framework but is not adequate in curbing misinformation and disinformation,” Maphosa clarifies. “It lacks good definitions and procedures to curb the rapid dissemination of misinformation, and it is loosely applied most of the time.”
In response to the emerging technologies that are being weaponized online, he points to fact-checking initiatives, digital literacy programs and public awareness campaigns as necessary counteractions that can build resilience to misinformation. “Zimbabwe can adopt AI-based fact-checking programs”, Maphosa suggests, adding, “crowdsourced verification websites, and blockchain for safe databases of information”.
Government and Legal Perspectives on Misinformation
Nick Mangwana, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Information, Publicity, and Broadcasting Services, explains the rationale behind the government’s position.
“The Constitution guarantees freedom of expression but only up to a point on the incitement of violence, promotion of hatred, or invasion of privacy,” he explained. “Our legislations, such as the Cyber and Data Protection Act, the Broadcasting Services Act, and the Freedom of Information Act, take care to provide for dealing with misinformation while guarding access to trusted information.”
However, there are concerns regarding information weaponization, particularly during politically sensitive periods.
“During elections, both the ruling party ZANU-PF and opposition politicians strategically spread disinformation,” Dr. Mteliso Farai, a Data Analyst and Management Information Systems Specialist, said. “Hashtags such as #ED2030Vision and #WeNeedNewLeaders demonstrate cyber battles where government and independent media push competing narratives.”
Farai Maguwu, a human rights researcher and the director of the Center for Natural Resource Governance based in Zimbabwe, has seen instances where human rights defenders have been attacked and their work discredited through disinformation campaigns. In 2011, he was arrested for his human rights work, charged and detained for 40 days by the Zimbabwean government.
“Misinformation has been successfully deployed to discredit human rights defenders,” Maguwu says. “The first tactic is to label you an enemy of the state, and claim that they are funded to attack the government. Instead of arguing genuine issues like the abuse of human rights in Marange, the argument turns to who is paying us. It’s a planned diversion.”
Helen Sithole, Legal and ICT Policy Officer at Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Zimbabwe, emphasised the role of misinformation in eroding trust among the public. “The increased use of social media has heightened the dissemination of disinformation”, Ms Sithole explains, adding that this has made it more difficult for independent media to retain credibility and impact.
One way this has manifested is in the chilling effect that coordinated disinformation attacks have had on journalists, causing self-censorship and public disorientation.
“We must find that balance between battling disinformation and safeguarding free speech,” Sithole continued. “Policies must bring content moderation transparency as well as bring about responsible reporting without making room for censorship.”
Disinformation in Politics: A Strategic Tool
Farai Marapira, the ruling ZANU-PF party’s Director of Information, addressed the issue of disinformation and misinformation, referencing its prevalence on social media and the party’s efforts to counter fake news with a three-level fact-checking system. He urges greater regulation of anonymous online profiles and stresses the importance of holding individuals accountable for propagating false news.
“Legislative action and public education on fact-checking are essential to combat disinformation and uphold national integrity,” Marapira asserted.
Senator Sengezo Tshabangu, Interim Opposition party, Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) Secretary General, said that the party needs its own media house to counter misinformation.
While this may seem like a viable response, Zimbabwe’s media space is complex, and having control of a media platform would not guarantee that the issues raised about misinformation and disinformation transcend mainstream media. Tshabangu agrees that it would be difficult to achieve any sort of equilibrium in the information space, as both state and private media are politically inclined and are therefore unlikely to advance information literacy beyond vying for the attention of an increasingly online audience.
The Impact on Media and Journalism
Lifaqane Nare, Director of FactCheckZW, describes how social media has supercharged misinformation on the internet.
“The platforms of X, Facebook, and WhatsApp are particularly complicit in spreading misinformation”, Nare says, adding “WhatsApp is particularly difficult to trace due to its privacy settings. These platforms have led to the creation of social media echo chambers, which reinforce divisions, as influencers amplify biases, leading to polarisation and unrest.”
She attributes the rise of misinformation and disinformation to political actors, bad journalism, and a lack of media and information literacy. Misinformation, as she explains, arises from misinterpretation of information and inaccurate reporting, while partisan narratives that set the agenda for public debate are at the heart of disinformation in Zimbabwe.
Ms Nare references bad journalism, political actors, and election disinformation as leading sources of misinformation. During the recent election, social media groups such as ZANU-PF’s Varakashi (named from the Shona word for ‘destroyer’) and CCC’s Mazzini (named after Italian politician and unification activist Giuseppe Mazzini) engaged in online activism and pushing particularnarratives, although ZANU-PF’s campaign was much more structured. In the 2023 elections, for example, ZANU-PF’s Varakashi dominated social media discourse, but CCC’s Mazzini faction attempted similar, but uncoordinated efforts.
“Government projects, such as the Mbudzi roundabout cost, have no transparency, so verification becomes difficult”, Ms Nare explains further, noting that this leads to harms far beyond what the original actors may have intended. “False policy or currency reports cause panic, inflation, and financial loss. There are few trained fact-checkers, and disinformation law is used against journalists instead of addressing the initial issue.”
Nkosana Dhlamini, ZimLive Deputy Editor, said that traditional media has once again gone back to fact-checking before publication, given the pressures of social media.
“We have had to reinforce editorial policies against sensationalism and dissemination of unverified information,” he added, saying, “We need more robust fact-checking tools to effectively deal with misinformation.”
Divine Bango Dube, the Executive Director of the Zimbabwe Centre for Media and Information Literacy (ZCMIL) sees media literacy as the best way to endow Zimbabweans with the capacity to recognize and shun misinformation.
“There is a need for greater investment in media literacy training as well as greater cooperation between schools and civil society to build public resistance against misinformation,” he says.
The Fight Against Disinformation: Solutions and Countermeasures
Doug Coltart, a human rights lawyer, cited the examples in which the disinformation law had been employed to prosecute journalists and activists. “The prosecution of Fadzai Mahere and Hopewell Chin’ono under an illegal law is but one case in point,” he says. “The state is also generally the prime perpetrator of disinformation and is using legalities in technicalities to suppress the opposition and dodge accountability.”
Maynard Manyowa, a Zimbabwean investigative reporter, pointed out that misinformation is not just unintentional but is intentionally used to monopolize narratives, manipulate public perceptions, and muzzle oppositions.
“State-controlled media, political parties, and independent media houses have turned into battlefields for these information wars,” Manyowa observed. “Most common misinformation includes political propaganda, falsified election results, misleading economic data, and manufactured health information.”
“Elections are characterized by fake news on politicians and rigged voting procedures, and in times of crisis, like the COVID-19 pandemic, fake news on vaccines and cures was rampant,” he went on.
Manyowa sees state institutions and members of the ruling party as the primary culprits in disinformation campaigns, especially how they use online propaganda networks, bots, and influencers to spread disinformation and propaganda.
While he does agree that foreign actors may be involved, he says that most disinformation in Zimbabwe is homegrown, affirming Lifaqane Nare’s statement that social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook and X are major vectors for misinformation, owing to their popularity and end-to-end encryption, which renders sources difficult to trace.
Despite the clear and visible role that these platforms play, Manyowa says that technology firms have not done enough to fight misinformation, and their fact-checking is primarily aimed at Western democracies, with African countries, including Zimbabwe, being left largely unmoderated.
“Algorithms reward engagement, so sensational and misleading content is shared more than good reporting,” he said. If this problem were to be fully and effectively addressed, he recommends that the government concentrates on media literacy and transparency over criminalizing dissent.
“Laws aimed at curbing misinformation are mostly applied to suppress free speech, not the original issue,” he stated. “An impartial media regulator would assist, but the political will is not there.”
AVG Director, Mxolisi Ncube also concurred with this, highlighting the influence of social media in determining Zimbabwean political discourse.
“The ruling Zanu-PF party and the mainstream opposition have both established online propaganda wings –Varakashi4ED and Chamisa Nerorists – that spread false information,” Ncube explained.
He agrees that WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter are hotbeds of misinformation, where members of the public may not have the capacity to identify and reject false information. Further compounding this is the fact that traditional media platforms have, at times, been accused of spreading misinformation through a failure in fact-checking and balanced reporting.
“The impact on Zimbabwe’s politics debate, elections, and people’s perception of governance is deep,” Ncube continued. “Disinformation campaigns have influenced public opinion, often at the expense of opposition parties or persons. The spread of disinformation has eroded trust in institutions, including the media, government, and election commissions.”
The Chilling Effect Of Coordinated Attacks
As disinformation becomes more rampant, journalists and fact-checkers feel the heat in countering lies.
“Most organizations have low capacity and resources to effectively fact-check and counter disinformation,” Ncube stated. “Journalists and fact-checkers are often intimidated and harassed by politicians and their surrogates, and those who reveal or dispute false narratives get legal repercussions.”
Both Ncube and Manyowa reaffirmed that external pressure and support from tech platforms to prioritise fact-checking is key in Africa.
“Independence, coordination, and international cooperation between fact-checkers and media will enable Africa’s combined strength against disinformation,” Manyowa stated, adding, “Media literacy initiatives must engage with independent media closely, fact-checking and collaboration initiatives are the way forward.”
When questioned about their actions online, Jones Musara, Chairman of Varakashi4ED, refuted accusations of disinformation dissemination. “We counter, promote, and popularize President Mnangagwa’s achievements,” Musara stated. “Our counter-narratives combat sensationalized falsehoods that undermine the government. We heighten verified state messaging and focus on tangible, visible content like infrastructure initiatives.”
Musara claimed that Varakashi4ED focused on verifiable, visible, and positive facts, such as updating the public on developments surrounding the Harare-Masvingo-Beitbridge road and its associated construction projects, which he claims to have been impacted by the spread of misinformation. He said that the group posted correct versions and pictures and videos of developments around the project as a public service, and even though the group had been accused of online harassment, their goal was noble.
“We understand that social media have been misused to carry out cyberbullying and instigation, but we support equitable and nondiscriminatory regulation to safeguard responsible digital citizenship without repressing free speech”, Musara told us. “We educate our members to avoid hate speech and propaganda, going instead for achievements [by the government] that are difficult to deny.”
Social media commentator Ndaba Nhuku [not his real name] says that his criticism of both the government and the opposition has drawn anger from those who conflate what he does with undermining the respective political sides.
“I have been accused of spreading falsehoods by ZANU-PF and the opposition too because I criticize where they are doing a bad job serving their members and the country,” Nhuku said. “Political parties, traditionally on tribal lines, instil a toxic environment where criticizing is labeled as disinformation.’
He continued, “ZANU-PF’s institutions have always been tribal in nature, and with Mnangagwa, there is an attempt to bring on board those displaced after the 2017 coup. To mention this is termed fake news. The opposition is also ZANU-PF’s mirror as far as tribalism is concerned, talking about only in elections issues like Gukurahundi.”
Commissioner Paul Nyathi, the national spokesman for the Zimbabwe Republic Police, warned against the dissemination of misinformation.
“When there is misinformation that is disseminated, we will investigate thoroughly to let the truth out and apply the law against offenders,” Nyathi said.
Regulation, Accountability, and the Future of Digital Governance
A 2024 article on political disinformation in Zimbabwe highlights that fake news has emerged as a central tool in Zimbabwean politics with both the ruling ZANU-PF and opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) having used misinformation to politically attack each other and so created a culture of constant contestation. This is happening amid a virtual fourfold increase in disinformation campaigns in Africa since 2022, with destabilising effects on the continent.
Media literacy is seen as a prime tool in fighting the dissemination of misinformation, especially among young people. An analysis of the role that disinformation played in Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections details how coordinated disinformation campaigns aimed to influence the electorate and undermine institutions tasked with managing and running the election, with social media platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook being used to spread falsehoods about election processes and candidates.
Ultimately, while misinformation and disinformation remain pervasive and potent forces in Zimbabwe, fueled by political interests, weak enforcement of laws, and the ease of diffusion of disinformation in digital media, what is clear is that stronger digital literacy programs are needed urgently, along with a free and open media, and an informed application of regulations and laws in a way that goes beyond stifling free speech, towards growing and safeguarding the truth and creating a stronger, more educated society.
Mkhululi Chimoio is an award-winning Zimbabwean investigative and solutions journalist based in South Africa.
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