Three prominent X/Twitter accounts appear to be behaving as information bridges or conduits between a Russian online community and communities that regularly interact on topics of political and social importance in South Africa.
This is according to a new report – Russian Influence In South Africa: The Kremlin’s in the System – produced by the Centre for Analytics and Behavioural Change (CABC) and Murmur, a research company with expertise in digital landscape tracking.
The three identified accounts are @insightfactor, @mmodiba10, and @IOL. @mmodiba10, whose account name reads “Modibe Vladimir Modiba” is a former columnist for Independent Media, the home of Independent Online (IOL), and co-founder of The Insight Factor.
The bridge accounts, @insightfactor and @mmodiba10, appear to be interacting predominantly between the Russian community and members of the MK Party community, which was previously the RET (Radical Economic Transformation) community.
The purpose of the research, the authors say, is to review the South African political discourse that takes place on X.com (formerly Twitter) to understand the vectors through which pro-Russian actors are interacting with these South African online communities.
Read the full report here: https://cabc.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Report_Russian-social-media-influence-in-South-Africa.pdf