writes Idris Mohammed
Africa-Press – Eswatini. Across the continent, people are increasingly turning to short-form videos for their news. This brings challenges and opportunities.
In less than a decade, TikTok has transformed from a platform for dance trends and entertainment into one of Africa’s fastest-growing sources of news. Short-form videos are increasingly shaping public conversations about politics, conflict, and security. While this shift brings immediacy and wider citizen participation, it also carries a significant cost. Misinformation, unverified claims, and political manipulation can now spread as easily as a viral dance challenge.
Recent surveys confirm the extent of TikTok’s influence. A 2024 study across five African countries revealed that 84 per cent of respondents relied on social media for news. Half of them cited TikTok specifically, while fewer than 16 per cent trusted traditional media such as television or radio. In Nigeria, 28 per cent of users regularly consumed news via TikTok; in South Africa, 33 per cent; and in Kenya, 38 per cent, far outpacing usage figures in Europe and the US.
The consequences of this shift are already visible. In Nigeria, TikTok removed over 3.6 million videos between January and March 2025 for violating content standards, representing a 50 per cent increase from the previous quarter. In Niger, the 2023 coup generated a wave of manipulated videos and fabricated audio clips that distorted public perception, complicating both domestic and international responses to the crisis.
South Africa, recognising the platform’s influence on political discourse, established a dedicated in-app election centre ahead of the May 2024 polls. Users could access verified information from the Independent Electoral Commission in multiple languages, including isiZulu, Afrikaans, Sesotho, Setswana, and English. On-ground teams and algorithmic moderation enabled the removal of misleading content with a 99 per cent success rate, demonstrating both the scale of the problem and the possibility of targeted interventions.
In Ghana, the problem is not limited to politics. The Ministry of Health has warned the public about scammers impersonating authority figures on TikTok. The Media Foundation for West Africa called for stronger regulation and digital literacy campaigns, while the government demanded localised content moderation to curb sexually explicit material, arguing that global standards did not reflect Ghanaian norms.
In Malawi, TikTok’s power to influence reached the legal system when a man was convicted for insulting the president in a viral video. The court threatened a sentence of up to six years in prison or a fine of approximately £2,600, illustrating how quickly content on the platform can have real-world consequences.
The clock is ticking
Several factors explain why untrained TikTok creators now outpace professional journalists. The platform’s recommendation algorithm amplifies early engagement, meaning dramatic but unverified clips can go viral in hours. Publishing requires minimal resources, while verification remains labour-intensive. Emotional resonance drives sharing; viewers value shocking visuals, outrage, or humour over accuracy. Finally, repeated posting builds a credibility proxy: audiences trust creators with large followings as reliable sources, regardless of their training or methods.
The implications are profound across much of the continent. The mix of short videos, heated commentary, and weak verification is deepening polarisation that spills offline. In Nigeria, watchdogs note that false claims and online agitprop now ricochet from social media into radio and print, hardening partisan camps and complicating election coverage and security reporting. In Ghana, the Media Foundation for West Africa documents a 2024-25 escalation of disinformation tied to party figures and influencers, eroding trust and sharpening “us-versus-them” narratives that linger beyond election day.
In South Africa, election-season disinformation amplified by high-profile accounts was serious enough to trigger formal partnerships between the IEC and platforms. During political instability in Niger, coordinated online campaigns, some pro-junta, some foreign-aligned, helped entrench pro-military and anti-Western frames. Region-wide, analysts have tracked a sharp rise in organised disinformation operations since 2022. This has clear implications for democratic backsliding and security volatility conditions in which rumours move faster than facts.
The risks extend beyond polarisation within single countries to cross-border and governance challenges. TikTok’s design allows narratives to travel across borders at unprecedented speed, creating regionalised waves of disinformation. A misleading clip uploaded in Ghana during an election campaign can easily resurface in Nigeria or Malawi, reshaped to fit local political tensions. In the Sahel, TikTok content amplifying pro-junta and anti-Western rhetoric circulated widely across Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali following recent coups, reinforcing militant narratives and fuelling distrust of international actors. This transnational flow complicates crisis management for states already struggling with porous borders and insurgency.
Governments are seizing TikTok’s disruptive role as justification for restrictive regulation. African countries have all floated or enacted laws targeting online platforms, ostensibly to combat fake news, but in practice, they are often used to silence dissent. This creates a policy paradox: unchecked disinformation undermines stability, yet overzealous crackdowns threaten freedom of expression. For stakeholders, whether policymakers, journalists, or civil society, the challenge is to balance regulation with protection of democratic space, while demanding greater transparency and accountability from TikTok itself.
Verification on TikTok is difficult; videos’ short life cycles often mean newsrooms cannot confirm facts before content disappears or spreads. Platform opacity prevents tracking the origins of viral content, hampering early-warning systems. Although investigative networks archive and analyse content, these efforts are time-consuming and underfunded.
Mitigation requires a coordinated approach by empowering local fact-checkers, partnering with authoritative institutions, increasing public literacy on media manipulation, and holding platforms accountable. Ghana’s coalition of fact-checkers, including FactSpace West Africa, Dubawa, GhanaFact, and Fact‐Check Ghana, used AI tools and broadcasts to debunk false claims swiftly. South Africa’s collaboration with TikTok and the IEC shows that integrating credible sources into the platform can be effective.
TikTok has become central to Africa’s news landscape; it offers immediacy and amplifies citizen voices, but unverified creators can distort events, influence elections, and complicate security responses. Africa needs robust journalism, informed citizens, and platforms that prioritise truth, not just virality. When a single clip can sway a nation before verification occurs, balancing speed with accuracy is no longer optional; it is urgent.
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