Battling Disinformation while Young, Black and Female with Phumzile Van Damme, Former MP, South Africa

What does it take to be a young Black Woman in politics, to build influence and lead with your principles still intact? Her Billion Dollar Moves is one I needed to deconstruct, that I thought all of us leaders could learn from.

ABOUT PHUMZILE

Phumzile Van Damme is a former MP award-winning counter-electoral disinformation, digital rights and platform accountability expert focusing on Africa. An activist on these subjects, she serves on boards and advisory councils of organisations dedicated to fighting disinformation and online violence against women and holding social media companies for harms emanating from their platforms – Real Facebook Oversight Board, #ShePersisted and the Global Partnership for Action on Gender-Based Online harassment and Abuse.

Van Damme’s fire foray into the fight against disinformation was featured in the documentary “Influence,” which charted the rise and fall of controversial global PR firm Bell Pottinger and her role in bringing it to justice resulting in its ultimate demise. The film premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2020. In the same year, Van Damme was invited to join the International Grand Committee on Disinformation, an international array of legislators, policy advisors, and other experts who work together to forge global alliances that bring shared, effective strategies into the battle against online disinformation, hate speech, and electoral interference.

In September 2021, Van Damme founded and coordinated South Africa’s first electoral disinformation monitoring project. She is expanding her work to include elections around the African continent and aims to roll out similar programmes for the 2023 elections in Zimbabwe, eSwatini and Liberia.

A former Member of Parliament in South Africa, Van Damme was elected to Parliament at 31 and served on the Communications and Digital Technologies committee as Shadow Minister and a National Assembly Whip.

She has spoken on various platforms about disinformation, including at the UNDP, the UN Commission on the Status of Women and Stanford University.

Van Damme’s achievements have not gone unnoticed, and she has received many accolades for her work. Recently she was awarded the prestigious 2022 Vital Voices Global Leadership Award for her work on electoral disinformation and holding social media platforms accountable.

Her other achievements and accolades include:
– Forbes Magazine Top 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa
– 2013 Mail and Guardian Top 200 Young South Africans
– 2019/20 Vital Voices fellowship.
– 2021/Munich Security Conference Young Leader Twitter @zilevandamme