Astroturfing the Ballot: Uncovering Misinformation and Inauthentic Engagement in July’s Metro Campaigns
By Yossabel Chetty, CINIA Researcher
Date Range: 01/07/2026 – 31/07/2026
Introduction
Controversial and inauthentic content is on the rise ahead of the Local Government Elections. Be on the lookout for candidate polls from anonymous accounts.
From the VF+ to BOSA, there are attempts to shift the narrative through questionable means that require critical engagement. BOSA, for example, may be using an official Meta means of advertising through accounts in Professional Mode. However, this still doesn’t reflect as an advert on the post and raises questions about the authenticity of the support in Ekurhuleni.
In Tshwane, the VF+ candidate has made some seriously damaging claims against the ANC saying that they force people in the SANDF to vote for them and that old people are threatened with displacement if they don’t vote a certain way.
July Content with Elections Filter
Rob Hersov’s Truth Report on YouTube featured prominently as a result of the hashtag #southafrica that was used to drive the content. In this video, Hersov interviews VF+ Tshwane candidate Wesley Jacobs. Jacobs is a former bodybuilder and member of the SANDF. Hersov explains in the video that Jacobs is the nephew of former ACDP member, Errol Naidoo, who earlier this year spoke about holding the ANC to account for crimes against humanity.
During the interview, Jacobs makes a few controversial clavims. Firstly, he claims that members of the SANDF are given two options, they can either join the ANC or work on base maintenance. This is a serious allegation and should be further scrutinised as it would present a direct conflict with the constitutional right that gives all citizens the freedom to make political choices.
In January 2026, Jacobs’ campaign in the by-elections copied the MAGA movement slogan saying “Let’s Make Ward 57 Great!”. In the interview Jacobs explains that his campaign grew support for the VF+ from 8% to 44% – a huge jump. However, it was not enough to allow him and his party to win the by-elections. When asked about the loss, he states that old people or people in old age homes were told that if they don’t vote “in a specific way”, the ANC is going to “take you out of your old age homes”. Jacobs felt that this alleged threat of displacement is what led voters in the ward to not vote for the VF+ and he claims that they put in a formal complaint about this to the IEC but there was no consequence management for this type of behaviour.
It is worth noting that ward 57’s by-election was won by the DA, with 53.2% of the votes while the ANC received roughly 2% of the votes in the ward. Voter turnout for the by-elections was also low at only 21.04%.
Figure 1: Ward57 VF+ slogan that mimic Trump campaign. Image: Newsday
The Metros
While conversation in Johannesburg remained high, Ekurhuleni returned the highest volume of conversation during this reporting period. 
Figure 2: Share of conversation by metro in July 2026
#BuildOneSA featured among the top hashtags across all metros. This was driven mainly by an announcement of BuildOneSA (BOSA) mayoral candidate in Ekurhuleni, Nongelo Chiume, on the party’s Facebook and X accounts. The majority of these mentions came from the comments to BOSA’s posts. These were made by accounts on both Facebook and X that have thousands of followers who appear to use similarly structured content that drives the hashtags #BuildOneSA and #Nongelo4Mayor. This raises questions about the authenticity and paid nature of the voices behind the BOSA Ekuruhuleni campaign. An example of how it has been used in the comments of a Facebook post can be seen in figure 3 below.
Figure 3: Comments on BOSA post with author details blocked out.
Without engaging critically with the comments on the post, it appears that accounts with South African names are showing their support for the BOSA candidate however, when details of the accounts are tabulated, some patterns arise.
Table 1: Accounts commenting on BOSA post with campaign hashtags
| Account | Hashtag(s) used | Number of followers | Account type/work |
| Account 1 | #BuildOneSA, #Nongelo4Mayor | 5500 | Digital Creator |
| Account 2 | #BuildOneSA, #Nongelo4Mayor | 1400 | Lifestyle Digital Content Creator |
| Account 3 | #BuildOneSA | 3900 | Digital Creator |
| Account 4 | #BuildOneSA, #Nongelo4Mayor | 7300 | Digital Creator |
| Account 5 | #BuildOneSA, #Nongelo4Mayor | 2700 | Digital Creator |
| Account 6 | #BuildOneSA, #Nongelo4Mayor | 5200 | Digital Creator |
Accounts commenting on the post with the BOSA campaign hashtags all appeared to have more than 1 000 followers. This is important for social media amplification as accounts with large followings have more opportunities for their content to be seen. The profile pictures used for the accounts appear to be young, Black South Africans and some of their profiles claim that they are university students.
Further, all the accounts (except for account 2) that commented on the post list their occupation as a digital creator. These accounts are all in “Professional Mode”, an effort by Meta to create transparency for people using the platform to understand if a person’s comment is the result of a paid ad campaign or not. A search through Meta’s ad library for BOSA shows that there were no paid ads that ran from 01 June 2026 until the time of writing this report. However, it is unlikely that the accounts in professional mode weren’t paid for their amplification of the BOSA Ekurhuleni campaign hashtags.
This example shows that even with the relevant platform architecture in place, there are still opportunities for political candidates to appear to have far more support than they actually do.
On X, where there is even less transparency, an account that has in the past been flagged for promoting misinformation, especially on xenophobic narratives, is also getting involved in the elections conversation but this time through the use of polls. The poll is shown in Figure 4 below.
Figure 4: Mayoral candidate polls on X by a questionable account.
Most of the accounts commenting to this post claim that they would like Herman Mashaba of the ActionSA to be Johannesburg mayor. However, there is another name emerging, particularly for the youth, Mlungisi Mabaso of the IFP. Mabaso is currently the head of human settlements in Johannesburg, and is seen here being stopped from arresting foreigners by the executive director of Seri, Nomzamo Zonde. The authenticity of the comments to these types of polls must be questioned due to the topics they usually focus on and the networks they engage with.
Scope
This reporting period is much shorter than the first two reports as it only covers July 2026. Due to the smaller dataset, the information is not broken down by the metros like in the Q2 report. However the campaign issues per metro, as they relate to information integrity ahead of the local government elections remains the focus of this report.
See CINIA’s Second Quarter Report here: Joburg pushes most buttons: Q2 tracker reveals online flashpoints in South Africa’s cities
The content was first viewed through the application of a filter of elections related keywords. The metro filters were then applied to help zoom into campaign issues at the municipality and ward level
