Mapping information risks and mitigations for election integrity in 2026

Mapping information risks and mitigations for election integrity in 2026

Threats to journalists, especially women journalists, are a top Information risk in the upcoming local government elections, alongside the threat of an expected flurry of deepfakes.

These insights emerged from a brainstorm of 20 people at a meeting convened by SANEF and MOXII Africa (formerly Media Monitoring Africa) on 9 February,  held at the SANEF offices in Johannesburg. The document can be accessed here.

The likelihood and severity of unfounded attacks on the IEC were also ranked as high risk by the participants, as was also the prospect of online and offline attacks and intimidation of officials exposing municipal corruption.

The workshop involved representatives from the IEC, media houses, one of the big tech companies, researchers and civil society support groups.

A similar human rights risk assessment was done ahead of the 2024 national government elections, providing the model in 2026 and feeding into the coalition activities of the UNESCO-supported Social Media For Peace SA (SM4P) programme, of which SANEF and MOXII are members.

The workshop pooled people’s insights into mapping what risks to information integrity could be expected in 2026 to pose a serious threat to election integrity.  The group also proposed mitigations by both media and big tech. They identified three categories of threats:

•       Risks to expression – intimidation of the public and the media
•       Disinformation regarding voters’ access to information
•       Threats to the electoral process, such as attacks on the credibility of the IEC.

According to participants, amongst the ways that media people can help counter the risks are:

•       Building journalistic credibility by showing the public “how the news sausage is made”
•     Organising solidarity and specialised training for journalists, and reinforcing codes of conduct
•       Setting up a rapid response capacity to alert the public about deepfakes, such as impersonations of IEC officials
•       Working with researchers and civil society

Steps that tech platforms can take were also proposed. These are to:

•       Re-publicise and enforce their terms of service to remind users that incitement is forbidden conduct on these services
•       Detect election-related content that threatens information integrity, and moderate it accordingly
•       Support fact-checking
•       Be transparent about plans relating to election integrity and give researchers access to data.