Publications
Partners
With elections getting closer, political parties will likely make outragrous claims, whether it is via adverts on street poles or via social media. To figure out whether a claim is real or rubbish, Media Monitoring Africa has launched a simple WhatsApp AI bot called AdCompare to help voters get the truth, write William Bird and Thandi Smith.
As we head closer to elections, we know parties will be going all out for our vote. As time runs out, parties are likely going to bombard us with even more messages, from street poles to all the media we consume, be it Facebook, Google, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter or WhatsApp.
While some adverts may be clear and straightforward, others might make claims that seem just outrageous. The problem is that living in South Africa means that in many instances reality is stranger than fiction.
If I sent a WhatsApp message saying the City of Johannesburg had closed the central Johannesburg Public Library for no valid reason, you could be forgiven for thinking it was made up – but it's true. There are countless political statements, shenanigans, and posts where that may seem unbelievable but are, in fact, true.
While we encourage people to go to credible news sites and sources that have real journalists and news sources that adhere to the Press Code and Broadcast Complaints Commission, it is often very tricky for members of the public to know whether a political advert they see (especially on social media) is real or rubbish.
Take the two following examples, one ostensibly for the Democratic Alliance and the other for the ANC.
While both are done in a style very similar to the adverts of the actual parties, they do seem to be deeply cynical rip-offs of the parties’ actual advertisements. How do we know?
We know because for the last few months, we have been carefully archiving the online advertisements created by the registered parties across Meta (including Facebook and Instagram) and Google platforms. You can see them and other data relating to how much parties have been spending on the Political Advert Repository (PADRE)
There are already thousands of adverts, so to help, Media Monitoring Africa has launched a simple WhatsApp AI bot called AdCompare to help you spot the real from the rubbish.
How does it work? Simply add the number: +2777 422 3316 to your WhatsApp. Then say "Hello". ADCompare will then ask you to upload the image you have seen of a party advert. It then compares the advert against all the images we have in the archive and sends back the three most similar images. All you need to do then is look and decide if the advert is real or rubbish.
If it’s real and you don't like it, you can complain to the party who issued it. If it looks manipulated, report it to Real411, where it can be investigated and, if necessary, reported to the IEC.
So next time you see an ad, before you repost or share, check against AdCompare (+2777 422 3316). Checking political adverts is a simple but important act we can all do to help ensure our elections are free, fair, and credible.
- William Bird is director of Media Monitoring Africa and Thandi Smith is Head of Programmes at Media Monitoring Africa.
* Have you heard an election-related rumour that you you are not sure about? Send a detailed message to the News24 WhatsApp line on +27 72 562 3179 and we will debunk as much as we can in our articles and updates.
Disclaimer: News24 encourages freedom of speech and the expression of diverse views. The views of columnists published on News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of News24.
