How social media influencers are likely to have a BAD influence on the SA elections
Have you considered how you're being played on social media in terms of your political choices?
Picture: Pixabay
Bruce Whitfield speaks to Kyle Findlay, researcher and co-founder at Murmur.
An 'influencer' is not exactly something new.
The concept has been around for generations, but now they're very much a part of our every day lives.
It's fair to say that they didn't have as much access to us in the olden days as they do today.
Videos and images of these once 'normal' people are now all over our social pages, as companies use them to promote their products given their massive following.
Social media has turned them into a pandemic, with everyone looking for freebies from handbags, to holidays, free meals and multitude of other consumer products.
However, have you ever consider how you're being played in terms of your political choices?
A Daily Maverick investigation monitoring trends in political discourse, has revealed the buying and selling of influence on X (formerly known as Twitter), is becoming a really significant trend.
Speaking to Bruce Whitfield on The Money Show, Kyle Findlay, researcher and co-founder at Murmur says this all happens without many people taking notice.
He says people consume information from these influencers, a lot of which is fake news.
"Different parties trade blows surreptitiously through harnessing these networks of what they call nano-influencers."
- Kyle Findlay, researcher & co-founder - Murmur
"People like Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla promoting this idea that the IEC election ballots are being stored and stolen, and Independent Media posting articles in the last couple of days about that. What's worrying is that they're linking it to tuck shops, saying the ballots are being stored in tuck shops which is code for foreigners."
- Kyle Findlay, researcher & co-founder - Murmur
"One of the biggest trends we're watching at the moment is this linking of foreigners to undermining our elections."
- Kyle Findlay, researcher & co-founder - Murmur
Scroll to the top to listen to the full interview.