Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) supporters march to the presidential guest house in Pretoria on March 20, 2023 during a "national shutdown" called by their party ( AFP / EMMANUEL CROSET)

Misinformation spreads during 'national shutdown' in South Africa

This article is more than one year old.
Published on March 30, 2023 at 16:04
3 min read
By Tendai DUBE, AFP South Africa

South African opposition party, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), led nationwide protests on March 20, 2023. During the demonstrations, social media posts carried images of crowds purported to be part of the rallies. However, some images were either old or unrelated to the event.

The EFF #NationalShutdown aimed to bring the country to a halt and called for the resignation of President Cyril Ramaphosa over a weakened economy, widespread unemployment, electricity shortages and alleged corruption.

As AFP reported (article archived here), authorities vowed there would be a heavy police presence to deal with any possible violence -- a key lesson taken from the July 2021 riots when at least 350 people were killed during protests sparked by the jailing of former president Jacob Zuma.

Sea of red

A video showing a large group of people in red circulated on Twitter and WhatsApp, with claims it showed the EFF out in full force on March 20, 2023.

“This is not even a demonstration police can control, because these are a unified people against a common goal. They are not stone pelters, looters or pleasing an individual,” read the tweet.

Screenshot of the misleading tweet, taken on March 20, 2023

However, a search of keyframes from the video using the InVID WeVerify tool showed the footage is old and was posted on the YouTube channel of South African broadcaster Eyewitness News on February 28, 2020.

Reverse image searches and keyword searches on Google showed that one of the EFF’s leaders and a member of parliament Mbuyiseni Ndlozi had shared the same video on the same day.

A screenshot of the tweet published by EFF’s Mbuyiseni Ndlozi on February 28, 2020

Another video, posted in the early hours of March 20, 2023, gave the impression that crowds dressed in red had gathered overnight in preparation for the protest. EFF members also shared the video.

A screenshot of the misleading tweet, taken on March 20, 2023

However, some replies in the posts indicated that the clip might have been old.

Our reverse image search indeed showed that EFF deputy president Floyd Shivambu had tweeted the video on July 26, 2020, while celebrating the party’s seventh birthday.

EFF in 2017, not 2023

Social media users also circulated other images of massive crowds in red (here and here) and tried to pass them off as recent pictures.

However, Helen Zille of the main opposition Democratic Alliance and others took to social media to debunk the claim, saying the pictures were actually from 2017.

Lol, the actually edited a 2017 photo and tried to present it as a photograph of today's national shut-down? What amateurs. https://t.co/FhxaepgUnP
— Helen Zille (@helenzille) March 20, 2023

Another reverse image search showed that the City Press had published the photo on March 19, 2017, and credited Tebogo Letsie, a photographer for major South African news outlets including The Times and News24.

Contacted by AFP Fact Check, Letsie confirmed he took the image.

“I took the picture in 2017 during anti-Zuma, Zuma must go protests by EFF and other political parties in Pretoria,” he said.

More photographs of the same march were published on the Good Things Guy blog on April 12, 2017.

The EFF also posted the picture on its Facebook page on April 30, 2019.

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