The impact of South Africa’s 30 June anti-immigration protests was doubtlessly terrifying for many foreign nationals. Yet the unofficial deadline for undocumented immigrants to leave the country was as much an online campaign as it was offline.

An increasingly energetic influence-for-hire market driven by familiar social media accounts from South Africa and across the continent was seen trying to control the immigration narrative.

The online campaign’s full impact will only be clear in the coming weeks as researchers sift through content and protesters vow to fight on. But an important component was the digital battle to make xenophobic and anti-immigration narratives and counter-narratives trend. For some online, that service comes with a price tag.

South Africa is increasingly a focus of the paid social media influencer market. This was evident during the 2024 election campaign, when online influence became an important tool for mis- and disinformation.

Social media platforms rank material according to popularity, not fact; more eyes on content sells more advertising. Paid influencers sit alongside the ideologues and politicians who see the digital universe as an increasingly important platform for their campaigns.

Although little over 40% of South Africa’s population uses social media, it is an important constituency that includes a large urban youth population, many unemployed or disillusioned with government, and looking for scapegoats.

So, what did we learn from online activities surrounding the 30 June protest?

Hashtags such as #Mabahambe, #June30, #PutSouthAfricansFirst, and #ImmigrationFraud were used to build online momentum for the nationwide protests leading up to 30 June. On the day, many nano or micro influencers (‘buzzers’ with small but influential followings) systematically amplified content in a coordinated fashion. That included material from the account of Jacinta Ngobese Zuma, leader of the anti-immigration March and March group.

Initial analysis for ISS Today by data analytics firm Murmur Intelligence suggested hers was one of the accounts benefitting most from ‘buzzer’ activity, but it was not alone. Many others behaved similarly, and the March and March movement hashtag #Mabahambe clearly dominated (see the word cloud below).

Hashtags and keywords trending on 30 June

Source: Murmur Intelligence

Some South Africans clearly share Ngobese Zuma’s views on immigration, and the country supports the right to hold diverse views, but was all of this engagement ‘authentic’?

Early analysis raises concerns about the inorganic nature of the social media amplification. Inorganic engagement is often characterised by attempts to ‘game the algorithm’ (the system ranking what we see in our feeds). Influencers use techniques to ensure a narrative trends, while the platforms earn advertising revenue based on engagement. ‘Organic engagement’ reflects ‘genuine’ online debate between users.

With touchstone issues such as immigration, Afrophobia or xenophobia gaining traction, social media platforms should respond to such manipulation.

‘What we are seeing is a coordinated camp of people online using digital tools to amplify hateful narratives,’ observes Prof Herman Wasserman, Director of Stellenbosch University’s Centre for Information Integrity in Africa. ‘This is not an organic movement; we are seeing lots of information manipulation and unfortunately it has offline consequences; it is not innocent and innocuous.’

In response to the anti-immigration protests, several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) created counter campaigns such as #WontBeMarching, to reclaim some of the information space dominated by the protests. But this kind of defensive communication often struggles, simply because of the arithmetic that drives social media engagement.

Murmur’s analysis found that while the top hashtag #Mabahambe (‘they must go’ in isiZulu and isiXhosa) was used 9 629 times on X by 16:00 on 30 June, the counter narrative had substantially less reach. #WontBeMarching was used just 199 times.

This indicates the challenge of responding to harmful social media narratives, shaping algorithms and moving the dial on hate speech. The counter campaign was nevertheless boosted by known influencers across Africa, including some in Nigeria, using hashtags including #Afrophobia.

As a sign of its growing digital awareness, the South African Police Service (SAPS) appeared to resist attempts to inadvertently amplify either side’s narratives by using their hashtags. Instead, SAPS generated its own hashtag, #Operation30June, to publicise information on arrests, protest sites, weapon seizures, traffic congestion, etc.

How did social media platforms respond to the 30 June protests? A growing body of evidence says companies like X, Facebook and TikTok gain more revenue from hateful content than from more benign posts.

Before the protests, South African NGOs Campaign On Digital Ethics and Campaign for Free Expression asked TikTok and X whether monetisation systems were, directly or indirectly, rewarding accounts that traffic in xenophobic hate speech and disinformation. At the time of writing, it was unclear whether they had received a response.

Moxii Africa Director William Bird told ISS Today late on 30 June that he was ‘seeing posts about weapons, matches, petrol, tyres’ – all of which could be interpreted as a call for protesters to target foreign nationals (‘digital vigilantism’). This could have been even more inflammatory given the proliferation of online content generated by artificial intelligence, which is hard to distinguish as fake.

However, media reports said the protests appeared ‘largely peaceful.’ Bird said the government had engaged with platforms before 30 June, and that TikTok had ‘taken down some content since early June.’ But other platforms like X remained unresponsive and hard to police, he said.

ISS Today saw videos on X of armed men firing weapons in a street where, it was suggested, foreign nationals lived. Murmur researchers said this material had been used in entirely different contexts from the 30 June protests, yet it was widely reshared by prominent amplifiers. X appears to have taken no action.

Dr Eileen Carter, South African Human Rights Commission National Coordinator for Human Rights and Digital Technologies, cautioned that 30 June ‘should be treated as a warning for the [4 November local] election period. The issue is not only what happens on the street but how online influence, paid amplification, harmful narratives and platform algorithms prepare the ground for real-world harm.’

Digital activity surrounding the 30 June protests appears to have been largely a domestic affair. But increasingly, foreign actors are weaponising the information space to sow discord and satisfy their own geopolitical ends.

With local government elections less than six months away and online influence merchants honing their skills, greater vigilance by the public and platforms is vital to counter those intent on harming South Africa’s hard-won democratic gains.

Written by Karen Allen, Consultant, ISS Pretoria