Strategic litigation against public participation, known as SLAPPs are becoming an increasingly common tactic by wealthy & powerful individuals to silence critical journalism. This weaponisation of the legal system to hinder investigative journalism poses a significant threat to information integrity in South Africa.

Joining Daniel Roodt to discuss SLAPPs in South Africa was News24 legal journalist, Karyn Maughan, who has been on the receiving end of a SLAPP and media law expert & partner at law firm Webber Wentzel, Dario Milo.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that the company would scale back its content moderation efforts and move to replace it with a community-notes system. This decision has been met with intense criticism from the international fact-checking community, who have claimed it will fuel the spread of disinformation on Meta's platforms.

In this episode, CIIA Director Herman Wasserman is joined by Cayley Clifford, Deputy Chief Editor of Africa Check, and Kavisha Pillay, Executive Director of Campaign on Digital Ethics (CODE), to discuss the implications of this new policy for Meta users in the Global South.

Africa Check: https://africacheck.org/

CODE: https://www.code-sa.org/

Under the Influence is produced by the Centre for Information Integrity in Africa (CIIA) at Stellenbosch University.

https://ciia.africa/

Under the Influence, brought to you by the Centre for Information Integrity in Africa (CIIA) and hosted by Professor Herman Wasserman, is a bi-weekly podcast focusing on topical issues in the complex world of disinformation, information integrity, journalism and the media.