The message arrives in the family group. An alarming claim. A familiar political face. A request to pass it on before somebody removes it. You have not checked it, but you already know who will be angry.
On 20 October, SAnews reported that the Electoral Commission had partnered with major technology platforms and Moxii Africa to counter disinformation ahead of the 4 November municipal elections. The initiative includes voter education and routes for reporting suspected election falsehoods.
Institutions have work to do. So does the person whose thumb is hovering over the forward button. A platform can review a post. It cannot make us want the truth more than we want our opponents embarrassed.
ScripturePaul places truthful speech within the new life believers have received in Christ. His reason for speaking truth to our neighbours is that we belong to one another. Falsehood injures a relationship before it wins an argument.
Ephesians 4:20–25
That connection is uncomfortable. We often treat political speech as though ordinary duties of honesty have been suspended. A rumour becomes acceptable because the people it damages have done other things wrong. A misleading photograph feels useful because it captures something we already believe.
A lie does not become neighbour-love because it travels in our direction.
Paul’s instruction reaches further than deliberate invention. If I have circulated something carelessly, discovering the error gives me a responsibility. I can correct it in the same group, with the same visibility. I can tell the people who trusted me that I was mistaken.
Before forwarding, open the original report. Check its date and whether the caption matches the event. Find out whether the named institution actually issued the statement. When those checks remain inconclusive, leave the claim unshared. Uncertainty does not create an obligation to publish.
These small acts will rarely earn applause. Sometimes they will cost us the satisfying moment when everybody agrees that the other side is terrible. That loss may expose how much of our public concern has become a hunger to belong.
Christ calls himself the truth. The new life Paul describes begins in belonging to him, and it changes what we do with our words. Our political loyalties remain answerable to that belonging. In the next family message, fidelity to Jesus may look as ordinary as refusing to press send.
