By Karen Allen and Isel van Zyl

This paper explores the links between digital vigilantism and organised crime in South Africa and Kenya.

Social media platforms have become powerful tools to amplify and share narratives. Like many evolving technologies, platforms such as Twitter or Facebook may be used for social good or for ill. Digital vigilantism (whereby social media platforms are used for organised shaming, hounding or doxing of a target deemed by the online community to have transgressed norms) may have real-world consequences. In extreme cases this may result in acts of ‘terrorism’ or other forms of unlawful killing. Yet while digital vigilantism may appropriate traditional law enforcement mechanisms, in some cases it may also try to hold law enforcement to account.

ENACT-Africa, 2020. 16p.