Blog – Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA)

08Jul

Who Holds Digital Power Accountable? Lessons from Platform Governance in Africa

CIPESA July 8, 2026July 9, 2026

By CIPESA Writer |

Digital platforms have become central to how millions of Africans access news, organise politically, run businesses, and participate in public life. Yet the companies that operate these platforms make far-reaching decisions about what people see online, whose voices are amplified, and how public debate unfolds, often with limited accountability to the communities they affect.

As platforms increasingly rely on artificial intelligence and automated systems to recommend, rank, and moderate content, questions about transparency, oversight, and responsibility have become more urgent.

Governments across Africa are beginning to answer the question of who governs the platforms in different ways. CIPESA’s latest policy brief, Platform Governance in Africa: Emerging Models and Policy Priorities, examines how Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda have confronted platform power, what their experiences reveal about the limits of national regulation, and why regional cooperation is becoming increasingly important.

Three Countries, Three Approaches

Nigeria has shown that African regulators can build credible cases and prevail in court. Following a joint investigation by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and the Nigeria Data Protection Commission, Meta was found to have appropriated Nigerian users’ data without consent, abused its dominant market position, and treated Nigerian consumers less favourably than users elsewhere. In July 2024, regulators imposed a USD 220 million fine, which was later upheld on appeal.

Yet the case also illustrates the limits of enforcement. When the payment deadline expired in June 2025, neither Meta nor the regulator had publicly confirmed whether the fine had been paid. Nigeria demonstrated that regulators can win legal battles. Whether those victories translate into lasting changes in platform behaviour remains an open question.

South Africa has taken a different approach. Rather than relying primarily on financial penalties, the Competition Commission’s Media and Digital Platforms Market Inquiry sought to address how dominant platforms affect the sustainability of local journalism. The inquiry secured binding commitments from Google, Meta, TikTok, and Microsoft, including a ZAR 688 million (USD 41.6 million) media support package from Google. It represents one of Africa’s most ambitious efforts to address platform power through competition oversight, although its long-term impact will depend on sustained political commitment and regulatory capacity.

Uganda’s experience offers a different lesson. A government-ordered restriction on Facebook, imposed in January 2021 after Meta removed accounts linked to government-affiliated influence operations, has now lasted more than five years. The costs have largely been borne by Ugandan users and businesses, highlighting the wider social and economic consequences of unresolved disputes between governments and global platforms.

The Limits of Acting Alone

These cases highlight a central challenge of platform governance in Africa: legal authority does not always translate into practical leverage over global technology companies. Also, it is apparent that market size matters. Nigeria and South Africa, as two of Africa’s largest digital markets, secured stronger responses from platforms than Uganda did. Most African economies are considerably smaller than Meta’s annual profits, limiting the pressure individual governments can exert on multinational companies.

This reality is driving growing interest in regional approaches. The ongoing investigation by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Competition Commission into Meta’s practices across 21 member states reflects a shift towards collective oversight of platform power. By acting together, governments have greater potential to address competition, data governance, and digital market concerns than they do individually.

Why Platform Governance Matters

Platform governance is often discussed in terms of regulation and competition, yet users ultimately experience its consequences. During the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, platforms struggled to moderate harmful content in Tigrinya and Amharic. In one widely documented case, Facebook posts targeting university professor Meareg Amare remained online for days after being reported and were removed only after he had been killed.

Across Africa, women journalists, politicians, and activists continue to face technology-facilitated gender-based violence that platform governance systems have struggled to address effectively. These failures can discourage participation in public life and narrow the diversity of voices represented online.

Meanwhile, coordinated disinformation campaigns continue to spread faster than moderation and fact-checking systems can respond. A 2025 analysis in Kenya documented a coordinated campaign that generated more than 150,000 views in less than two weeks, illustrating how quickly harmful narratives can circulate before effective interventions are possible.

What Needs to Change

The policy brief argues that platform governance in Africa must extend beyond content moderation to broader questions of accountability, competition, data governance, and algorithmic transparency. Addressing these challenges will require governments to pursue rights-respecting regulation, regulators to strengthen oversight of platform systems, regional bodies to deepen cooperation, and platforms to provide greater transparency about how automated systems shape online experiences.

Platform governance in Africa is no longer only about removing harmful content. It is about who controls the infrastructure of public communication, on what terms, and with what accountability to the people who depend on it.

The experiences of Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda show that African governments are increasingly willing to confront platform power. They also demonstrate that no African country can do so effectively in isolation. Building a more accountable digital future will require stronger institutions, deeper regional cooperation, and platforms that are genuinely responsive to the societies they serve.

To explore the evidence, country case studies, and policy recommendations in greater detail, read CIPESA’s full policy brief, Platform Governance in Africa: Emerging Models and Policy Priorities.

08Jul

Cybercrime Laws, “False News” Offences, and Online Expression in Africa

CIPESA July 8, 2026July 9, 2026

By CIPESA Writer |

As African societies become increasingly digital, governments are grappling with the balance between the protection of citizens from online harms while preserving the fundamental freedoms of free expression, access to information and freedom to participate in governance.

The legal tools adopted to address these challenges are raising an equally pressing concern. Cybercrime and so-called “false news” laws are increasingly extending beyond their stated purpose of combating digital harm and are instead being used to regulate political speech, suppress dissent, and narrow civic space.

This emerging tension sits at the heart of CIPESA’s latest policy brief, Cybercrime Laws, “False News” Offences, and Online Expression in Africa. Drawing on legislative developments, court decisions, and recent cases from select countries, the brief examines how cybercrime legislation has evolved into one of the defining governance issues of Africa’s digital era.

Many countries have introduced offences such as “false information”, “offensive communication”, “malicious communication”, and “harmful content”. While these provisions are often justified as necessary responses to online abuse, they frequently suffer from vague drafting and broad enforcement powers. This creates uncertainty about what constitutes unlawful speech and allows authorities considerable discretion in deciding who should face criminal investigation or prosecution.

In several African countries, journalists, activists, bloggers, opposition politicians, and ordinary citizens have been arrested or prosecuted for online expression that would ordinarily fall within the boundaries of legitimate public debate. At the same time, restrictions on online speech increasingly operate alongside expanding surveillance powers, internet shutdowns, and growing state control over digital communications, reinforcing broader patterns of digital authoritarianism.

Importantly, however, this is not simply a story of shrinking freedoms. Encouraging developments in several jurisdictions demonstrate that alternative approaches are both possible and necessary. Recent constitutional decisions in Uganda and Kenya have reaffirmed that restrictions on freedom of expression must be clearly defined, proportionate, and consistent with constitutional protections. Similarly, in Nigeria legislative reforms illustrate how sustained engagement by civil society can improve legal frameworks, even if implementation challenges persist.

These developments highlight an important policy lesson as to how regulation can effectively address genuine digital harms without criminalising legitimate expression or weakening democratic accountability.

This policy brief explores these issues in greater depth, examining the emerging patterns across Africa, the evolving role of national and regional courts, and the reforms needed to ensure that cybercrime regulation strengthens both digital security and democratic governance. It concludes that the future of digital freedom in Africa will depend on how governments, courts, regional institutions, and technology companies navigate this balance.

The brief sets out concrete recommendations for four groups of actors. Governments should repeal or amend vague offences, including those relating to false information, offensive communication, and similarly broad categories, that have been used to criminalise legitimate online expression. They should prioritise civil remedies over criminal sanctions in defamation and reputation-related disputes, refrain from imposing internet shutdowns, and ensure that any restrictions on freedom of expression comply with international human rights standards.

Legislators and regulators should ensure that cybercrime and digital governance laws comply with the principles of legality, necessity, and proportionality. They should also require human rights impact assessments before introducing new cybercrime or disinformation laws and establish meaningful public participation throughout the law-making processes. Laws developed without meaningful public scrutiny and civil society engagement are more likely to undermine rights than protect them.

Regional institutions should strengthen the monitoring and implementation of regional human rights commitments and promote common standards on digital rights and accountable digital governance to guide national legal reforms across the continent.

Finally, technology platforms should invest in African language content moderation and local contextual expertise, improve transparency around content moderation decisions and algorithmic decision making, and strengthen grievance and appeals mechanisms for users in African countries, where existing processes often remain inaccessible or ineffective.

Please read the full Policy Brief here.

08Jul

What Global South Civil Society Wants from AI Governance

CIPESA July 8, 2026July 8, 2026

By CIPESA Writer |

As global discussions on the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI) governance take place at the AI for Good Global Summit and the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, questions about who shapes AI systems, whose interests they serve, and how affected communities can participate in decision-making are becoming increasingly urgent.

The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East & Southern Africa (CIPESA) is pleased to share this joint statement by the Global Digital Justice Forum and the Global South Alliance, of which it is a member. The statement reflects concerns that CIPESA has consistently raised through its research and policy engagement, namely, current approaches to AI development risk deepening existing inequalities, and meaningful AI governance requires stronger corporate accountability, equitable data governance, and investment in public-interest AI infrastructure.

Through submissions to national AI strategies in Africa, analysis of AI governance trends across 14 African countries, and engagement with global AI policy discussions, CIPESA has consistently advocated for inclusive, rights-based approaches that ensure communities most affected by AI developments have a meaningful role in shaping its future.

The statement below brings together civil society perspectives from across the Global South and calls for an AI governance approach grounded in human rights, equity, public interest, and meaningful participation.

Joint Statement issued by the Global Digital Justice Forum and the Global South Alliance in the lead-up to the Global Dialogue on AI Governance

July 2026

The current trajectory of Artificial Intelligence (AI) innovation has consolidated the neocolonial structures of development. Today, a handful of US and Chinese transnational corporations dominate global AI systems. Driven by massive capital, semiconductor manufacturing dominance, and hyperscale cloud infrastructure, these companies control over 90% of global AI data center capacity. Their market capitalization exceeds the combined national income of many countries in the Global South. The wealth and power amassed by these corporations come at a staggering cost, borne disproportionately by the South. From the devalued, dehumanizing labor that is essential for training AI models to the critical minerals, land, energy, and water, communities in the South continue to provide the scaffolding for the AI economy and society, without the voice and power to shape and benefit from this paradigm. These systemic injustices also perpetuate deep dependencies on current and future infrastructures — over which communities lack control and sovereign agency.

The Global Digital Justice Forum (GDJF) and the Global South Alliance (GSA) believe that the emerging AI order lacks legitimacy; it grants unbridled impunity to powerful corporations, while reducing humanity and nature to objects of limitless extraction. The many summits and conversations about AI governance have failed to tackle these core issues.

Against this backdrop, we exhort the UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance to deliver on a South-led AI paradigm, anchored in a vision of rights-based development, respectful of planetary boundaries, and committed to intergenerational justice and human rights. We urge that the Global Dialogue on AI Governance commit to the following.

End AI extractivism

A ‘move-fast-break-things’ approach to digital innovation aids profit, not people. In particular, the systemic and collective risks and harms associated with the violation of human rights, the erosion of democratic processes, the abuse of the environment, and the discrimination and invisibility of marginalized citizens in AI-driven decision-making in public services remain consistently ignored and underplayed in international consensus declarations. AI innovation must embrace the precautionary principle. It must be ethically and transparently developed, democratically accountable, and grounded in a globally agreed minimum floor for meaningful and dignified work, pluralistic knowledge, diversified economies, and planetary flourishing.

Apply the Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR) principle in international AI cooperation

The reckless path of data and AI technologies, designed and controlled by a few, has led to predatory value capture, strengthening the geo-economic and geo-political power of a handful of corporate actors and countries. The human and planetary costs arising from such opportunism are indeed a common concern. However, power diff erentials in international economic law have led to a status quo where trade, taxation, and Intellectual Property regimes clearly disadvantage developing countries, disproportionately enabling a massive transfer of wealth from the South to the North. This seriously undermines the development of digital infrastructure and human and institutional capabilities in developing countries. Such asymmetry must be remedied through global commitments to underwrite the development of regenerative, locally-led, AI infrastructures and models in the South.

Address corporate impunity in data and AI value chains

A global moratorium on the sale and use of AI systems that pose a high risk to human rights (such as remote biometric recognition, social scoring, spyware, and AI-driven autonomous weapons) is urgently needed. The proposed UN Binding Treaty on Transnational Corporations (TNCs) to hold global businesses accountable for human rights violations and environmental degradation in supply chains needs to be adopted without delay and appropriately future-proofed against the specific risks of harms and abuses in data and AI value chains.

Design a data governance framework that delivers on global equity

A ‘one-size-fits-all’ policy playbook for cross-border data flows governance will not deliver on equitable development. Development sovereignty must be recognized as a core principle in the global governance of cross-border data flows. Furthermore, the governance of the non-personal data commons requires a societal approach that includes safeguards for collective privacy and the rights of communities to steward the use and re-use of their data resources in innovation ecosystems, together with strong personal data protection rights.

Invest in the development of global public compute

The foundational infrastructure of compute is controlled by a few corporations. Even open-source AI models are often dependent on closed/proprietary infrastructure systems for their hosting and distribution. To ensure that data science and AI innovation deliver on public innovation, a global facility for public compute is needed. A ‘CERN for AI’ could support a distributed network of AI research centers coordinated by a central hub and provide access to innovators and researchers from developing countries.

The current trajectory of AI innovation is not working for the majority. The Global Dialogue on AI Governance must move the needle with conviction and courage towards people’s participation, planetary wellbeing, and public value. Anything less will not do justice to the people of the South.

Please find the links to prior submissions from GDJF and GSA to official consultations of the Global Dialogue below:
● GDJF’s April 2026 submission
● GSA’s April 2026 submission

01Jul

How Digital Participation is Redefining Civic Space for Young People in Africa

CIPESA July 1, 2026July 1, 2026

By Raylenne Kambua |

Across Africa, young people are engaging with public life through digital spaces. Social media platforms, messaging apps, livestreams, and short-form video are now part of how youth learn about public issues, share experiences, and respond to matters that affect their lives.

This reflects a broader shift in how young people participate in public life, where civic engagement is no longer confined to formal institutions or organised campaigns. For many, especially those with limited access to formal institutions, mobile phones have become the main entry point into civic life.

This evolution is unfolding alongside growing global attention to digital governance and rights, reflected in frameworks such as the United Nations Global Digital Compact and the African Union Data Policy Framework. Across regional and global mechanisms, youth are increasingly recognised not only as beneficiaries of policy but as actors shaping digital and civic futures.

Yet these policy discussions are responding to changes already visible in everyday practice. Young people use digital platforms to access information, interpret public decisions, connect with peers, and engage with institutions through the channels they use daily. Understanding these practices is key to understanding how civic space itself is changing.

Digital Participation in Practice
In Kenya, the 2024 #RejectFinanceBill discussions showed young people using X and TikTok to break down tax proposals, share experiences of the rising cost of living, and mobilise protests, turning complex fiscal debates into accessible, peer-to-peer civic learning. Nigeria’s 2024 #EndBadGovernance mobilisation followed a similar pattern, with social media reframing inflation and subsidy cuts as shared public issues.

Even in contexts where civic space is shrinking, and mass mobilisation is not always possible, young people are using social media to discuss public issues, share news, and raise concerns. This is evident in discussions on accountability in Uganda, Tanzania and Senegal, especially during elections or moments of tension. Across these contexts, digital participation shapes how political views are formed and shared in everyday life.

In Mozambique, social media has become an important space for political discussion, particularly during sensitive periods when traditional media is constrained, extending the reach of public debate beyond broadcast and print channels.

In parts of the Sahel, including Mali and Niger, participation happens under more constrained conditions. Internet shutdowns, surveillance risks, and restrictive regulations shape when and how young people can engage online. Even so, messaging apps, virtual private networks (VPNs), and diaspora networks remain important channels for staying connected to civic life.

Digital Spaces as Civic Space
For many young people, civic life is increasingly shaped by digital spaces, where public issues are first encountered, discussed, and interpreted before being shared and debated within peer networks that extend beyond formal institutions.Social media is used not only for expression but also to translate policy issues into accessible language, share experiences of public services, and circulate practical information on health, education, and livelihoods.

CIVICUS civic space monitoring highlights how digital tools are central to how citizens organise and engage institutions, including in contexts where civic space is narrowed. Meanwhile, Afrobarometer research shows that young people are more active in informal and digital participation and are more likely than older persons to use social media as a source of political information.

Participation is therefore less tied to formal moments such as elections and more embedded in continuous interaction with information, discussion, and response through everyday digital communication.

This participation is becoming more accessible, as young people are increasingly able to enter public debate with basic connectivity and a smartphone, without needing formal entry points into political or civic institutions.

Engagement is also more issue-driven, organised around immediate concerns such as cost of living, education, health services, employment, taxation, and accountability, which anchor participation in everyday experience rather than formal political calendars. At the same time, participation is becoming more networked and expressive, as memes, short videos, and livestreams allow complex issues to be translated and broken down into shareable formats while enabling rapid circulation of information across dispersed networks.

These shifts point to a pattern in which participation is less tied to formal civic moments and more embedded in continuous interaction with public debate, shaped by the speed and flow of digital communication.

Implications for Participation and Inclusion
Digital participation is now part of how young people learn, connect, and navigate daily life. This has implications for inclusion because the same platforms used for civic expression are also used to access information on services, opportunities, and public systems.

Participation in civic life is increasingly shaped by inclusion in digital spaces, where access to information influences the ability to participate in public discussion. In many contexts, messaging platforms and short-form video are used to share knowledge about public services and everyday challenges, showing how civic participation and practical information often overlap.

Barriers to Digital Engagement
Despite growing participation, digital civic engagement faces constraints that influence how safely and meaningfully young people can engage in public life online.

In several contexts, internet shutdowns, surveillance practices, unwarranted arrests stemming from social media content, and platform restrictions limit access to information during moments of political tension and weaken trust in digital spaces as reliable channels for civic engagement. Legal and regulatory frameworks can further shape participation where broad provisions on misinformation, cybercrime, or public order create uncertainty and encourage self-censorship among users.

The rapid spread of online content has increased exposure to misinformation, making it harder to verify information, particularly where trusted public sources are limited. Uneven access to devices, high data costs, and gaps in digital skills also shape who can participate meaningfully and on what terms, reinforcing the same inequalities that determine access to information and services more broadly. Limited awareness of digital safety can further affect confidence in engaging openly.

These constraints are reinforced by a growing gap between the scale of youth participation online and the extent to which institutions provide structured ways to respond to what is being expressed in digital spaces. Much of this participation, therefore, does not always translate into formal decision-making, even where it is widespread and visible.

What Needs to Change
Young people are already participating in public life through digital spaces. The question is not whether this is happening, but how institutions respond to forms of engagement that take place outside formal structures.

This calls for a shift in how digital engagement is understood: not a separate or informal layer of civic life, but part of the broader system through which public debate and accountability now operate.

Governments and institutions need to protect the conditions that enable participation, including safeguarding freedom of expression, avoiding disruptions such as internet shutdowns, and ensuring that laws governing online spaces are clear, predictable, and rights-respecting, since these conditions directly shape whether participation is safe and meaningful.

It also requires more responsive and structured ways of engaging with what young people are already raising on digital platforms, so that online discussions are not left to exist in isolation but can inform decision-making in practice. This goes beyond one-way communication and calls for approaches that allow feedback, dialogue, and institutional response to the concerns and priorities circulating in digital spaces, while recognising young people not only as users of platforms but as actors shaping how civic engagement unfolds.

The task is therefore not to introduce participation, but to strengthen the conditions under which it becomes safer, more meaningful, and more likely to influence public decisions.

01Jul

Navigating Digital Rights in Africa amidst Increasing Foreign Malign Influence

CIPESA July 1, 2026July 6, 2026

By CIPESA Writers |

On May 21, 2026, more than 300 delegates convened in Nairobi, Kenya, for the 19th edition of the Kenya Internet Governance Forum (KeIGF) to discuss the state of digital rights and internet governance on the continent.

The KeIGF was held three weeks after the continent’s digital landscape was jolted by the Zambian government’s decision to postpone RightsCon, the global digital rights forum, four days before it was scheduled to start. Efforts to resolve the issue yielded no positive results, and Access Now, the event organiser, decided to cancel the conference.

According to the Access Now statement, officials in Zambia’s Ministry of Technology and Science had reached out to them with concerns raised by diplomats from the People’s Republic of China, who were “pressuring” the Zambian government over the planned in-person participation of Taiwanese civil society.

Proceeding with the event while excluding some participants at the behest of certain countries would have set a bad precedent. The RightsCon cancellation, however, had a ripple effect. Several in-person sessions of the World Press Freedom Day 2026 Global Conference, which was to be held alongside the RightsCon conference at the Mulungushi International Conference Centre in Lusaka, were cancelled, while others were rescheduled to later dates.

These events highlight the growing influence of national governments on the success or failure of regional and international digital rights convenings. As Access Now explained, such convenings often involve extensive diplomatic engagement between conference organisers and host countries to secure their commitments, among other things, to respect the fundamental human rights of all participants and to ensure smooth logistical preparations. For example, in March 2026, the Zambian Ministry of Technology and Science issued a statement announcing that the government would be a co-host of the RightsCon conference.

Access Now’s decision was a timely reminder that fundamental human rights, including digital rights, are non-negotiable and interdependent, and that national governments should not be at liberty to choose which rights to respect.

Growing Incidents of Foreign Malign Influence in Africa

Foreign governments’ interference in the internal affairs of African countries is not new, and while incidents of foreign malign influence in Africa’s trajectory toward digital authoritarianism have been well documented, the RightsCon cancellation was possibly the first time a foreign entity worked so blatantly to influence the direction of a digital rights convening itself. This clearly demonstrated the dangers posed by the growing economic and power imbalances between African countries and their trading partners.

Because many African countries have turned to China and Russia for support for their economic and security agendas, respectively, they have inadvertently surrendered part of their sovereignty to these superpowers due to what is referred to as the “debt trap”.

For example, in April 2026, China was reported to have scrapped tariffs on all African countries except Eswatini, which maintains diplomatic relations with Taiwan, a move that contributed to friction between Access Now and the Zambian government. Earlier in 2022, the Chinese government was reported to have “forgiven” 23 interest-free loans to 17 African nations after it had also cancelled more than USD 3.4 billion in debt and restructured around USD 15 billion in debt in Africa between 2000 and 2019.

Reports by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) and the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) have shown that geopolitical interests have often crossed national boundaries, with powerful nations exerting influence on the legal landscapes and digital public infrastructure of many African countries.

According to an Institute of Development Studies study that mapped smart surveillance technologies in 11 African countries, many African countries that have embraced smart city surveillance have tended to rely on China for financing their digital public infrastructure, including tools, software, and capacity-building, which are often deployed to conduct digital surveillance of their citizens. Digital rights actors and individual government critics have often borne the brunt of these surveillance practices.

Unfortunately, the deployment of these digital surveillance tools and software is often characterised by limited oversight and a lack of transparency regarding their purchases and operations, raising serious concerns about their intentions and their impact on human rights.

In April 2026, a team of United Nations Experts raised serious concerns about the proliferation of digital surveillance technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), noting that their misuse by states in law enforcement, counter-terrorism, border management, and national security and military contexts poses serious human rights risks.

Disinformation and Information Warfare

Africa has also become a battlefield for disinformation campaigns as different superpowers scramble to expand their spheres of influence. Foreign disinformation campaigns are particularly prominent during periods of contestation, such as elections, protests, and civil strife.

Because they are more covert, disinformation campaigns have become more insidious as they are rarely noticeable or easily associated with foreign actors. For example, in countries such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Nigeria, Russia has worked with locally based influencers and digital content creators to amplify pro-Kremlin narratives and messaging while keeping their connections to Russian-backed initiatives a secret.

In 2024 alone, there were at least 80 documented cases of Russian-linked disinformation campaigns targeting more than 22 African countries. Indeed, several of Africa’s fragile autocracies, such as Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic (CAR), Mali, and Sudan, have come to rely on Russia’s well-coordinated digital propaganda to sustain their stay in power.

Mitigating the Malign Influence

Foreign malign influence has continued to thrive in Africa, partly due to African countries’ overreliance on the “generosity” of superpowers seeking to shape Africa’s political, social, and economic landscape. While development partnerships and support are critical to a country’s development, these should be anchored in rights-respecting frameworks and geared towards benefiting ordinary citizens.

Taken together, the various aspects of foreign malign influence are undermining the democratic practices of many African countries, including electoral processes, while emboldening autocratic leaders to embrace digital authoritarianism.

For digital rights activists, especially in Africa, it is therefore important to understand and address the factors driving the expansion of foreign digital malign influence and to develop strategies to counter it, including mechanisms to hold governments accountable when they purchase and deploy digital surveillance tools and software.

More specifically, digital rights actors should:

Strengthen Digital and Media Literacy

Because foreign malign influence most often thrives in contexts with limited media and information literacy, weak media systems, and digital inequalities, it is important that rights actors build systems that promote information integrity, such as media independence, fact-checking, and independent journalism, to counter information manipulation. In most of Africa, the media and information ecosystems are so integrated, enabling the viral spread of misinformation through influencers and digital content creators with large followings. Quite often, media houses amplify the disinformation tapped from influencers with large followings without verification.

Build Stronger Coalitions and Regional Networks

In many African countries, governments have often used the tried-and-tested “divide and rule” approach, mischaracterising digital rights actors as either sympathetic to them or “enemies”. The main purpose is always to isolate certain actors deemed too critical.

To mitigate the risks associated with engaging with less democratic governments, digital rights actors should aim to build synergies and support systems, ensuring that collective voices among like-minded organisations, such as academia, media, and telecom companies, can, among other things, challenge government excesses. This could include issuing joint statements, which is critical as it does not expose any entity; and providing technical and financial assistance to more at-risk organisations.

Leverage Digital Rights Convenings

Digital rights convenings such as the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa (FIFAfrica) and Internet Governance Forum have become strategic platforms for digital rights advocacy and engagements, especially with national governments. It is therefore important that digital rights actors use these platforms to continuously ask duty bearers the hard questions regarding the conduct of due diligence reports on any technologies imported into the continent and their impact on fundamental human rights.

For example, Africa will host several international and regional digital rights convenings, including the 21st Global Internet Governance Forum, which will be held in Kenya in December 2026, the fourth time the event will be held on the continent. In September, Mauritius will host the 13th FIFAfrica edition, while Ghana will host the 15th Annual Africa Internet Governance Forum in November 2026.

These events present great opportunities for digital rights actors to reflect on Africa’s digital rights record and the progress made so far, and to table concrete African positions on digital rights, including data sovereignty, Artificial Intelligence, and platform accountability.

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