This blog by Sean McGovern and Abraham Diing Akoi, is based on a recently published research report on social media and violence. The blog explores the intersection between the use of social media, including WhatsApp, in times of conflict and violence. Using the case of South Sudan, the blog identifies how communities have used WhatsApp in both positive and negative ways during conflict. The blog provides some recommendations on how to mitigate the detrimental effects of social media on conflict and violence in the country.
As infrastructure has improved in South Sudan, similarly to what has been seen elsewhere, the use of social media and messaging apps has also increased. It is clear there are many positive elements to wider availability of social media such as enabling increased connectivity of communities both within the country as well as with the diaspora for helping aid efforts or enabling women to promote and build new businesses. However, as conflict has evolved, social media has also become an important tool for spreading hate across communities.[1] In this blog we specifically address the role of social media in conflict in South Sudan. We report examples of where WhatsApp has been used to promote and coordinate violence and also cite instances where this platform has been used to minimise the effects of these conflicts. We also discuss potential opportunities for mitigating the detrimental effects of social media.
Actors commonly use social media to ‘attack’ each other through the dissemination of false information and propaganda that targets ‘rival’ communities. Individuals that we held informal conversations with stressed the importance of WhatsApp particularly in planning, mobilising and coordinating attacks among the youth across many communities. They also confirmed that WhatsApp has made it simpler to remain connected with group members in town, villages and other locations, including the diaspora and with those that have gone off to fight in skirmishes and wider conflicts.[2]
We found that social media platforms have evolved from a vessel ‘simply’ used for hate speech, propaganda, misinformation, and fake news into an effective tool for planning, mobilising and coordinating attacks including organising ambushes or facilitating logistics during conflicts. In contrast, examples were also identified where social media is utilised in a positive way, with Facebook (FB) and WhatsApp being described as the society’s ‘radio and television;’ the primary way members spread and receive information regarding their community[3].
“…we have specific WhatsApp groups from clan youth leaders only. In this [these] groups, all discussions about conflict, peace, social activities are shared among the youth’ groups. Nowadays, we plan everything on WhatsApp from domestic work to cattle relocation.”[4]
These platforms link communities in both metropolitan and rural areas as well as in the wider worldwide diaspora. In Juba for example, common interests, such as sports can link members from a myriad of backgrounds. These groups are in constant contact using platforms such as WhatsApp or FB to organise events, relay important news, and provide general support and networking opportunities.[5] Typically English is employed, however a mix of Arabic and vernacular is also utilised with voice recording tools commonly used for and by those unable to read or write. Additionally, as a form of security, these platforms provide the ability for isolated rural communities to remain in contact with metropolitan centres and vice versa. Open communication amongst South Sudanese allowing communities to remain in communication, despite censorship in some instances, and acknowledging communities where there is still no communication infrastructure.
Whilst conducting our research we found social media’s role in conflict was more complex than our initial impression not realising its significant contribution to actually coordinating attacks. Social media is used, for example, to call for reinforcements during conflict, to highlight where ‘targets’ are located or to identify vulnerable ‘approaches’ to communities or settlements. In addition, the platforms have been used to coordinate attacks on certain groups, fuelling ethnic tensions in an already volatile environment. The use of social media should be considered an evolving threat due to its widespread use as a tool for conflict – a weapon, commonly used to maximise damage. Social media platforms (specifically the messaging tools) have become essential in logistics, planning and coordinating ambushes or robberies, and organising larger scale conflicts. However, conversely, they have also become a means for warning communities of impending attacks or directing medical aid to where it is most needed following violence. Below we highlight instances exemplifying the complex impact of social media on conflict.
During one conversation with a public transport driver based in Juba, he claimed that a specific ethnic group believed that it was being targeted along the Nimule Highway and that these attacks were being coordinated via social media, particularly WhatsApp. No specific evidence was forthcoming to support his claim. However, a very high proportion of attacks appear to target vehicles transporting women and children from specific ethnic groups raising understandable concerns by this community. These attacks, commonly in the Juba-Yei and Juba-Nimule Road area, were particularly prevalent in 2016 when public vehicles carrying specific ethnicities were frequently stopped. The nature of these events and particular the targeting of certain ethnicities was the genesis of the believe that vehicles were identified and tracked via WhatsApp. This driver had been navigating this route for half a decade and had seen an emerging pattern of vehicles with only certain ethnic groups ‘burned and killed.’ and he believed that a level of coordination, presumably utilising social media, was integral to organising these attacks.
There was precedence for this type of coordination with an incident that occurred in 2020, where a youth traveling from Tonj Town to a Thony village was attacked and killed. It subsequently emerged that the two killers coordinated their attack via WhatsApp[6]. One who supplied the information about the location and timing was with the victim in Tonj Town, providing these details via social media allowing the killer to lay down an ambush. Similarly in 2023, 13 people were attacked on the roads in Tonj East. One of the culprits was later caught and revealed how they coordinated the ambushes telling police that some of their group would sit in the markets identifying and monitoring traders to see which roads they would travel on and then inform their colleagues on the roads via WhatsApp to organise the ambushes.
In our interviews with approximately 50 people from 4 locations (Juba, Tonj East, Greater Pibor Administrative Area – GPAA and Uror), we asked whether these individuals thought that the effect of social media had been positive or negative on communities specifically during times of conflict? With 1 being the most negative and 10 the most positive. There was general agreement across these locations with average scores of 1.0 in Uror, 2.0 in the Juba region and 2.9 in Tonj East indicating general agreement across the country that social media had a negative effect on inciting and fuelling violence. The influence of social media on conflict being a ‘daily occurrence’ according to several respondents. According to one community youth member in Wunlit Tonj East, Warrap State.
“… in our group, we plan attacks, defend our community, mobilise each other, all these are possible because of WhatsApp,”
Other conversations revealed that during times of conflict communities use instant messaging apps to communicate with their members. This includes raising support such as requests for money for food, guns, ammunition or other supplies, or to pass along information about movement of the communities they are fighting.
WhatsApp is also pivotal in the organisation of logistics during violence. For example, coordinating who should bring ammunition, who needs weapons, which individuals need more ammunition during the fighting itself, when to attack, or who is to help the wounded. For example, when communities of Luany-jang fought the Lou-paher community in Tonj North County in 2021, it was reported that the surprise attacks against the Luany-jang were predominantly coordinated via WhatsApp with this platform-enablement being attributed much of the success of the attacks.
As mentioned previously social media can also play a positive role during conflict. For instance, during violence, social media are often used to pass information to authorities, meaning interventions can be mobilised in a timely manner potentially saving lives. For example, in January 2022, during an attack on Baidit Payam in Bor County in which 37 people were killed, information following the incident was shared on social media so that medical teams could be dispatched to the scene where they were most needed potentially reducing further loss of life. During our interviews we also heard that social media is used to create awareness before and after conflict. For instance, before violence starts participants use social media to advise vulnerable people including women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities to leave their villages for safer places. Here the urgent need for mobilization benefits from the speed of messaging that social media platforms provide. One example reported to us from Uror County highlighted how social media was used to warn of an imminent attack against Lou Nuer people as Murle youth began to mobilise. We also heard that if youth realise a conflict is imminent, they will share this information via social media to evacuate people or to coordinate defensive positions around vulnerable people within their communities. We heard of one instance in December 2020, when a Murle youth asked one of our researchers to send him a ‘recharge card’ so that he could warn his fellow youth about the rumour of a potential and imminent attack on their village by Dinka and Nuer youth.
We heard that youth leaders in the communities use social media to remain in constant contact with the youth in towns. If money is needed to buy supplies for defending the community from these attacks or threats, this is typically communicated via group chat and money and donations are contributed by members of the community. It is an everyday aspect of life according to a clan youth leader in GPAA[7] from Tonj East:
“…two days ago, we were told there is large groups of unknown people, suspected to be from Nuer cattle raiders heading toward where our cattle are, as you see now, we will leave immediately should our people identify them as Nuer or other cattle raiders. This information is in our group WhatsApp.”
At times these conversations were difficult with respondents reluctant to talk to us as many felt that this was the equivalent of informing on their community and would reveal how their attacks were organised and coordinated. Despite this we clearly heard that WhatsApp is the platform most commonly used for these purposes on the understanding that it has end-to-end encryption only accessed by members and also that it is the most widely used messaging service within the country. One surprising finding was the positive aspects around social media given the widespread dogma that these platforms are a vehicle of trouble and conflict. We have discussed examples where WhatsApp was used to direct help, successfully evacuate or protect vulnerable members and WhatsApp has also been used to coordinate humanitarian, development and peacebuilding efforts as well as safety and security information sharing. The widespread use of social media can impact the aid sector helping coordinate humanitarian efforts meaning that aid actors should be very invested in finding solutions to the detrimental roles that social media plays.
Future Directions
From this and other reports it is clear that social media is commonly used to spread misinformation inciting and propagating conflict. Currently there seems to be little deterrent and little in the way of education to discourage the spread of misinformation or hate speech. Despite some examples of platforms being used in more positive efforts, our findings are that social media platforms, such as WhatsApp, are often utilised by communities to mobilise their members, organise logistics, plan their attacks and coordinate strikes against other communities. On the whole people believe that these platforms have a negative impact overall.
We believe that the implementation of education programs around hate speech and misinformation are an important opportunity to mitigate these issues. According to both community leaders and youth we spoke to, humanitarian and development agencies and related entities currently active in South Sudan such as UNMISS, Save the Children, UNDP, #DefyHateNow South Sudan, or other NGOs, should provide resources for programs that address these issues and actively combat them to mitigate future violence. Information and teaching about the dangers of hate speech and how misinformation can directly incite violence should be provided. The importance of effectively identifying misinformation was emphasized in many of our conversations. These programs should particularly target the ‘youth’ who, according to several community youth leaders, are most frequently involved in the conflicts and who are also the most vulnerable to misinformation. Our conclusion, in agreement with several community leaders, is for a ‘sit down’ or conference of the major humanitarian organisations to formulate a united policy to address this topic. Currently there is minimal education in place to combat this issue and misinformation will continue to proliferate with the advancement of and increasing use of technology within South Sudan.
It is important to emphasise that violence is not a new or modern phenomenon and that large swathes of South Sudan have suffered from intercommunal conflict, cattle raiding, violence, and robberies for decades, predating any form of social media. However, our findings have confirmed the role of social media in ‘accelerating’ violence.
Understanding this phenomenon is particularly necessary in South Sudan, which currently has one of the lowest levels of information and communications technology (ICT) penetration worldwide. With efforts being made to increase ICT penetration through the expansion of mobile communications, there is a window of opportunity to mitigate the detrimental effects of social media. Education programs regarding the dangers of misinformation, disinformation, or the spread of hate speech via social media should be developed. These should target rural communities particularly and incorporate messaging from influential figures including youth leaders or elders and may need to be coordinated by agencies that are independent of the central government.
Another possible intervention or ‘treatment’ could be the replication of a system currently employed within the public health sector. Before prescribing certain drugs, medical professionals will receive an automated digital warning before confirming their prescription to minimise instances of over-prescribing or prescription errors. Some suggested a screening system whereby certain key words indicating violence or hate speech should trigger a signal challenging whether the message should be sent or not. Whilst this is not a panacea it may help reduce violence and perhaps in coordination with longer-term solutions such as education programs, could be an effective intervention to this issue in both South Sudan and across the globe.
Whatever the solution, the challenge of mitigating the detrimental effects of social media on propagating violence needs to be embraced. The local population clearly believe that certain government officials or elites are complicit in using social media to propagate violence and so any solutions may need to come through the efforts of the international organizations and will need to be implemented sooner rather than later.
[1] PeaceTech Lab, Social and Conflict in South Sudan: A Lexicon of Hate Speech Terms, 2016, accessed December 21, 2018, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54257189e4b0ac0d5fca1566/t/5851c214725e 25c531901330/1481753114460/PeaceTech Lab_ SouthSudanLexicon.pdf.
[2] Interview with cattle camp youth, Tonj East, 19th June 2023
[3] Interview with community youth, Pibor, 27th April 2023
[4] Interview with community youth, Tonj East County, Warrap State 15th May 2023
[5] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/africaatlse/2022/12/12/youll-never-walk-alone-in-south-sudan/
[6] Interview with youth member, Tonj East County, 25th April 2023
[7] Interview with a clan youth leader, GPAA, 25th April 2023
