After the Ballots: Confronting Gendered Mis&Disinformation in Uganda’s 2026 Elections
When the ballots closed in Uganda’s 2026 elections, the noise did not.
For the House of Seshat, the end of the election cycle marked the beginning of a different kind of work. Over the past several months, we have examined how online platforms shape electoral processes across Africa with a particular case for the Ugandan 2025/206 elections. From WhatsApp mobilisation networks to TikTok political messaging and influencer-driven narratives, digital spaces are no longer peripheral to democracy. They are central to it, and fundamentally becoming part of our building blocks for e- democracy.
But as our election research, soon to be released, makes clear, these same platforms have also become battlegrounds for gendered mis and disinformation.
In partnership with Westminster Foundation for Democracy, on February 26th 2026 we convened a post-election workshop focused on misinformation and disinformation targeting women leaders and structurally marginalized groups, including persons with disabilities and gender non-conforming persons. The aim was not simply to reflect, but to equip.
The room included young women politicians who had just come from the campaign trail, governance practitioners, media professionals, civil society actors and movement builders. One of the most powerful contributions came from a young woman leader who had recently concluded her 2026 campaign, reflecting on her experience, she said:
“Verification alone is not enough. The algorithm does not reward truth, it rewards engagement.”
Her campaign, she shared, had faced distorted media headlines and coordinated online narratives. By the time her team drafted formal responses, the damage was already circulating widely.
“By the time you are drafting a diplomatic response, the misinformation has already travelled across the country online.”
Her insight captured a central tension in Uganda’s digital electoral landscape: misinformation spreads fast, corrections move slowly.
Across African contexts, from Uganda to Kenya and Nigeria, women candidates are often attacked not for policy positions but for identity. Morality, personal life, and gender expression become weapons. Participants in the workshop noted that persons with disabilities and other marginalized groups face similar tactics, where narratives are designed to isolate, stigmatise, and silence.
The training moved from experience to strategy. Facilitators led hands-on sessions on reverse image search, AI-generated content detection, metadata analysis, and domain verification. But tools were only part of the conversation.
What emerged strongly was the need for collective action and amplification.
“If you cannot match their speed alone, build a network. Ten voices correcting misinformation travel further than one,” one of the workshop participants emphasised during the group discussion.
Participants also challenged us to rethink how fact-checking is presented.
“Young voters move with what is trending. If fact-checking is not engaging, it will not move.”
In other words, defending democracy online requires not only technical literacy but cultural fluency.
For House of Seshat, this workshop represents a continuation of our broader research into e-democracy and electoral processes in Uganda. As our forthcoming research will show, online platforms are not inherently democratic or harmful. They are infrastructures of power. The question is who understands them, who navigates them safely, and who is protected within them.
If Uganda’s 2026 elections have taught us anything, it is that safeguarding democratic participation must include safeguarding those most targeted especially online.
The ballots may be counted. But the work of digital resilience has only begun.