Conveners: Rebekah Lee and Miles Tendi
Speaker: George Karekwaivanane (University of Edinburgh)
Disinformation on a Shoestring: Examining the Anatomy and Strategies of the Pro-State Network in the Zimbabwean Twitterverse
In August 2020 the hashtag #ZimbabweanLivesMatter unexpectedly went viral on Twitter and was used to critique the repression, human rights abuses and economic mismanagement perpetrated by the Zimbabwean government on its citizens. At its peak, the hashtag was used in more than 700 000 tweets a day. To counter this powerful public criticism the Zimbabwean government launched a concerted campaign using a network of Twitter accounts to regain the political initiative. This paper uses the government’s counter-campaign as a window through which to examine the anatomy, goals, strategies, and tactics of the pro-government troll army commonly known as the ‘Varakashi’. Whereas other studies have treated the Varakashi as a homogenous group, in this study I disaggregate the network of accounts by focusing on the division of labour in the disinformation campaigns. I also examine the connections between disinformation and the exercise of power in Zimbabwe, and argue that the Zimbabwean government’s operation on twitter can be usefully thought of as ‘disinformation on a shoestring’.
George Karekwaivanane is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh. His research focuses on two main areas: a) the mutually constitutive relationship between law, society and politics in African history, and b) the socio-political impacts of digital media in contemporary Zimbabwe.
