Online Gendered Abuse and Disinformation During the 2024 South African Elections

The report finds that women in South African politics face significant online abuse, particularly on TikTok and X, often targeting their physical appearance, age, and intelligence. While South Africa possesses a comprehensive legal framework to combat gender-based violence, enforcement is weak. Social media platforms are criticized for inadequate moderation of non-English content and a lack of transparency in their enforcement processes. The report recommends that the South African government integrate OGBV into the remit of the National Council on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide and that platforms expand multilingual moderation to cover all 12 official languages.

• Online gender-based violence (OGBV) against South African women in politics is most prevalent in public online spaces, specifically within replies and comment sections.
• Misogynistic actors frequently target women's physical attributes, age, and perceived intelligence to delegitimize their leadership and promote stereotypes that women are unfit for power.
• TikTok fails to restrict or block abusive content written in non-English South African vernacular, even when equivalent terms in English are banned.
• While South Africa's legal frameworks regarding elections and gender-based violence are considered progressive and comprehensive, there are significant failures in their implementation and enforcement.
• Social media platforms X and TikTok have policies that should protect women, but they do not sufficiently enforce them, particularly in comment sections and for non-English language content.
• Analysis of X posts showed a high concentration of abuse targeting women affiliated with the African National Congress (ANC), potentially linked to anti-incumbency sentiment.
• A manual review of high-profile women's Facebook profiles found a lack of OGBV in public comments, though experts suggest abuse often occurs in private circles and is later screenshotted to other platforms.
• The report identifies a lack of platform transparency and data access, which hinders the ability of independent researchers to track the scale of OGBV and the effectiveness of moderation.

APA

Martiny, C., Rolfe, T., Zerie, B., Gallagher, A., & Schwertheim, H. (2024). Online Gendered Abuse and Disinformation During the 2024 South African Elections. Institute for Strategic Dialogue. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Online-Gendered-Abuse-and-Disinformation-During-the-2024-South-African-Elections.pdf

Chicago

Martiny, Clara, Terra Rolfe, Bilen Zerie, Aoife Gallagher, and Helena Schwertheim. Online Gendered Abuse and Disinformation During the 2024 South African Elections. Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2024. https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Online-Gendered-Abuse-and-Disinformation-During-the-2024-South-African-Elections.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Martiny |first1=Clara |last2=Rolfe |first2=Terra |last3=Zerie |first3=Bilen |last4=Gallagher |first4=Aoife |last5=Schwertheim |first5=Helena |title=Online Gendered Abuse and Disinformation During the 2024 South African Elections |publisher=Institute for Strategic Dialogue |date=2024 |url=https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Online-Gendered-Abuse-and-Disinformation-During-the-2024-South-African-Elections.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{martiny2024online, author = {Martiny, Clara and Rolfe, Terra and Zerie, Bilen and Gallagher, Aoife and Schwertheim, Helena}, title = {{Online Gendered Abuse and Disinformation During the 2024 South African Elections}}, institution = {Institute for Strategic Dialogue}, year = {2024}, url = {https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Online-Gendered-Abuse-and-Disinformation-During-the-2024-South-African-Elections.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }