How a Polish website drives fake news in SA

A new report, put out by a research centre at Stellenbosch University, has now exposed a Poland-based news group called Visegrád24 for amplifying the views of alt-right commentators and their false narratives and mistruths about what’s happening in South Africa today. The report, authored by the university’s Centre for Information Integrity in Africa, has also drawn links between Visegrád24 and Polish government funding, while allegedly enjoying US tax-exempt status. The man at the centre of its operations is founder Stefan Tompson, who has brushed shoulders with local political YouTuber Willem Petzer and Sebastiaan Jooste, the man behind “Twatterbaas”. To shed more detail on the university’s report in this edition of The Lead is our News24 Disinformation Desk editor, Andrew Thompson. Later in the show, News24’s multimedia team ventures down a zama-zama’s mine shaft. Finally, The Lead is “skibidi” enough to end off revealing Cambridge Dictionary’s new words.You can send show host Graeme Raubenheimer a short voice note with your questions or thoughts on this episode to our official The Lead WhatsApp line, that’s: +27 72 562 3179. Mail your comments to thelead@24.com. Editions drop on Monday through Thursday at 19:00 on Spotify, Apple and YouTube.