Real411
Disinformation Reporting Platform for South African Elections
Overview
Real411 is a high leverage civic technology platform that gives South African citizens a direct channel to report disinformation, hate speech, and other digital offences — with particular focus on election integrity. Reports are triaged against a defined digital offences framework, analyzed with legal partners, and escalated for real world action (platform takedowns, media corrections, or formal complaints). During election cycles it becomes a critical public safeguard against manipulated information spreading at scale. Built with Moxii Africa and backed by partners including UNESCO, SANEF, the Press Council, and the Open Society Foundation.
The challenge
- Handling sudden spikes in report volume during election periods — the platform must absorb civic traffic surges without degradation
- Triaging unstructured public complaints and classifying them against a precise digital offences taxonomy
- Coordinating a multi stakeholder workflow — public reporters, media analysis, legal partners, and platforms
- Maintaining trust and transparency while reports contain sensitive personal information and allegations
What shipped
- Public complaint submission for disinformation, hate speech, and other digital offences with structured evidence capture
- Defined digital offences framework for consistent classification and routing of reports
- Complaint lifecycle tracking — users can view status, outcomes, and escalation steps on their reports
- Trends view surfacing aggregated reporting data to understand misinformation patterns over time
- Election season integrations with the IEC to protect electoral integrity against manipulated content
- Mobile app and training program (Real411 Spotters) to scale detection beyond the platform
Product
The live product is the best walkthrough. Use the link in the sidebar to explore it directly.
Stack
- SvelteKit for a fast, server rendered public web experience across low bandwidth mobile networks
- Serverless AWS architecture to handle unpredictable election day traffic spikes cost effectively
- Structured database model for complaints, classifications, and multi party case workflows
- Secure submission and evidence handling for reports containing sensitive personal data