Last weekend, at a typical SA braai, I found myself in a heated conversation with someone who was highly educated yet was passionately defending a piece of Russian propaganda that had already been widely debunked. It was unsettling. The conversation quickly became irrational, emotional and very uncomfortable.
That moment crystallised something for me: we’re no longer just approaching an era where truth is under threat — we’re already living in it. A reality where falsity feels familiar, and information is weaponised to polarise societies and manipulate our belief systems. And now, with the democratisation of AI tools such as deepfakes, anyone with enough intent can impersonate authority, generate convincing narratives and erode trust — at scale.
The 2024 KnowBe4 Political Disinformation in Africa Survey revealed a striking contradiction: while 84% of respondents use social media as their main news source, 80% admit that most fake news originates there. Despite this, 58% have never received any training on identifying misinformation.
This confidence gap echoes findings in the “Africa Cybersecurity & Awareness 2025 Report”, where 83% of respondents said they would recognise a security threat if they saw one — yet 37% had fallen for fake news or disinformation, and 35% had lost money due to a scam.
What’s going wrong? It’s not a lack of intelligence, it’s psychology. Humans are not rational processors of information; we’re emotional, biased and wired to believe things that feel easy and familiar. Disinformation campaigns — whether political or criminal — exploit this.
- The illusory truth effect. The easier something is to process, the more likely we are to believe it — even if it’s false, a 2019 study shows. Fake content often uses bold headlines, simple language and dramatic visuals that “feel” true.
- The mere exposure effect. The more often we see something, the more we tend to like or accept it — regardless of its accuracy, a 1968 study shows. Repetition breeds believability.
- Confirmation bias. We’re more likely to believe and even share false information when it aligns with our values or beliefs.
A recent example is the viral deepfake image of Hurricane Helena shared across social media. Despite fact-checkers clearly identifying it as fake, the post continued to spread. Why? Because it resonated emotionally with the frustration users were feeling and their emotional frame of mind.
According to the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies, disinformation campaigns on the continent have nearly quadrupled since 2022. Even more troubling: nearly 60% are state-sponsored, often aiming to destabilise democracies and economies. The rise of AI-assisted manipulation adds fuel to this fire. Deepfakes now allow anyone to fabricate video or audio that’s nearly indistinguishable from the real thing.
Why this matters for business
This isn’t just about national security or political manipulation — it’s about corporate survival too. Attackers don’t need to breach your firewall. They can trick your people. This has already led to corporate-level losses, like the Hong Kong finance employee tricked into transferring more than $25m during a fake video call with deepfaked “executives”. These corporate disinformation or narrative based attacks can also result in fake press releases that can tank your stock, deepfaked CEOs that can authorise wire transfers, and viral falsehoods being spread that can ruin reputations before PR even logs in.
The World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Risk Report named misinformation and disinformation as the top global risk, surpassing even climate and geopolitical instability. That’s a red flag businesses cannot ignore.
The convergence of state-sponsored disinformation, AI-enabled fraud and employee overconfidence creates a perfect storm. Combating this new frontier of cyber risk requires more than just better firewalls. It demands informed minds, digital humility and resilient cultures.
What can be done? While AI-empowered defences can help improve detection capabilities, technology alone won’t save us. Organisations must also build cognitive immunity — the ability for employees to discern, verify and challenge what they see and hear:
- Adopt a zero trust mindset. Just as systems don’t trust a device or user by default, people should treat information the same way — with a healthy dose of scepticism. Encourage employees to verify headlines, validate sources, and challenge urgency or emotional manipulation, even when it looks or sounds familiar.
- Introduce digital mindfulness training. Train employees to pause, reflect and evaluate before they click, share or respond. This awareness helps build cognitive resilience — especially against emotionally manipulative or repetitive content designed to bypass critical thinking. Educate on deepfakes, synthetic media, AI impersonation and narrative manipulation. Build understanding of how human psychology is exploited — not just technology.
- Treat disinformation like a threat vector. Monitor for fake press releases, viral social media posts or impersonation attempts targeting your brand, leaders or employees. Include reputational risk in your incident response plans.
The battle against disinformation isn’t just a technical one — it’s psychological. In a world where anything can be faked, the ability to pause, think clearly and question intelligently is a vital layer of security. Truth has become a moving target. In this new era, clarity is a skill that we need to hone.
• Collard is senior vice-president of content strategy and evangelist at KnowBe4 Africa.
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