A recent investigation has uncovered the emergence of a website titled ‘Dumb Alliance,’ which is actively participating in a smear campaign against the Democratic Alliance.
Mysterious ‘Dumb Alliance’ website surfaces online
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The ‘Dumb Alliance’ website emerged as part of a targeted smear campaign against South Africa’s Democratic Alliance.
The website was registered on Tuesday, 2 April 2024, and quickly began its operations a day later.
It is hosted on servers located in Singapore, and the domain was registered through NameSilo, LLC.
The use of privacy protection services has obscured the identities of the registrants, making it difficult to trace the origins directly back to any individuals or groups.
This website operates by providing content that is slanderous towards the leadership of the Democratic Alliance.
It uses a professional, streamlined design, suggesting that significant resources were allocated to ensure it reaches and influences a wide audience.
Additionally, the content on the site is largely hidden, with only the landing page accessible to the public, which is filled with AI-generated text that denigrates its targets.
The investigation into the site’s background and hosting details reveals that the operators use advanced tactics to remain anonymous and avoid accountability.
This setup allows the website to operate in a grey area, utilising the global nature of the internet to evade local political advertising laws and regulations.
Who is behind ‘Dumb Alliance’ smear campaign?
Unravelling the identities behind the ‘Dumb Alliance’ website proved challenging due to the use of domain privacy services and sophisticated anonymisation techniques.
While the direct operators remain unidentified, the patterns and tactics employed suggest the work of an organised group rather than spontaneous, independent actors.
The smear campaign’s structure, involving a professionally designed website and synchronised social media dissemination, points towards a calculated effort to influence public perception against the DA.
The use of AI-generated content for rapid production and distribution of slanderous material is indicative of a campaign backed by resources that likely extend beyond mere individual capability.
An in-depth social media analysis has revealed a consistent promotional strategy among users displaying allegiance to the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF).
Many of these accounts share a common pattern of captions, hashtags, and links directing traffic to the ‘Dumb Alliance’ site.
While these connections suggest a thematic alignment or a supportive stance from certain EFF sympathisers, there is no concrete evidence linking the campaign to the official EFF organisation or its leadership.
This layer of plausible deniability is often a hallmark of digital disinformation campaigns, designed to obscure the true source while achieving wide reach.
How paid social media smear campaigns can alter national elections
The tactic employed by the ‘Dumb Alliance’ campaign involves using social media to spread negative propaganda, a method that can significantly influence public perception and voter behaviour.
These campaigns typically use a combination of AI-generated content and strategic social media placements to reach a wide audience rapidly.
The anonymity afforded by the internet allows such campaigns to operate in the shadows, making it challenging to trace the origins and hold parties accountable.
In the past, there have been several documented instances across various regions where dark marketing tactics and sentiment manipulation were used to influence electoral outcomes.
1. United States – 2016 Presidential Election
During the 2016 US presidential election, there were significant allegations and later confirmations that foreign entities utilised social media platforms to spread misinformation and divisive content.
Russian operatives, for instance, created fake accounts that posted thousands of politically charged messages aiming to sow discord and influence public opinion.
2. Brexit – United Kingdom 2016
The Brexit referendum saw widespread use of data analytics and targeted advertising to sway public opinion.
Campaigns like Vote Leave utilised targeted ads based on detailed psychographic profiles to push persuasive messages to specific voter segments, raising concerns about transparency and the influence of unseen digital campaigns
3. Cambridge Analytica Scandal
Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm, acquired the personal data of millions of Facebook users without consent and used it to target political advertising.
This scandal highlighted the impact of data privacy violations and the potential for social media to manipulate elections, affecting not just the US but also political campaigns in other countries like Kenya and Trinidad and Tobago.
4. Brazil – 2018 Presidential Election
The 2018 Brazilian presidential election featured significant use of WhatsApp to spread false information.
Supporters of certain candidates used the platform to send out massive amounts of misinformation and defamatory content about opponents, which, due to the encrypted nature of WhatsApp, was difficult to monitor and counter.
5. India – General Elections
India’s elections have seen extensive use of social media for political campaigns, including the use of “IT cells” that manage social media strategies to influence voter perceptions.
There have been allegations of these cells spreading fake news and manipulative content to discredit political opponents.
