Minister Solly Malatsi: Government Social Media Summit

Power Shift+: Reimagining Citizen Engagement through Human Intelligence + Artificial Intelligence

Programme Director, Professor Alistair Mokoena and the Johannesburg Business School, Lorato Tshenkeng and the Decode team, Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen,

Good afternoon.

By this point in the day, you have already spent several hours thinking about artificial intelligence, human intelligence, social behaviour, truth, transparency, public trust and the future of government communication.

Those are all important conversations.

But I want to begin with a slightly different form of intelligence.

Not artificial intelligence. Not even human intelligence in the abstract.

I want us to think about the intelligence we fail to gather when a citizen cannot get online to be heard.

The young person who cannot afford enough data to search for an opportunity.

The small business owner who receives public information too late to act on it.

The citizen who is spoken about in dashboards, reports and analytics, but who is not actually present in the data because they were never meaningfully connected in the first place.

That is the silence we should worry about.

Because you cannot listen to a citizen you have not connected.

And you cannot serve a citizen you cannot hear.

That is the core challenge before us today.

A digital state is only as trusted as it is inclusive. And a government communication system is only as effective as its ability to reach the people who most need to be reached.

This is why the conversation about citizen engagement cannot begin with platforms, algorithms, dashboards or social listening tools.

It must begin with the citizen.

It must begin with the simple question: who is still outside the conversation?

The promise of digital government and using social media as an engagement platform with citizens is significant. I believe that deeply.

At its best, a reimagined interaction between a citizen and the state should feel completely different from what too many South Africans experience today - faster, simpler, more dignified.

A citizen should not have to move from office to office, queue to queue, form to form, and call centre to call centre simply to access something to which they are entitled.

From the citizen's point of view, interacting with government should be one experience.

Not because the state is simple, but because the burden of complexity should sit with government, not with the citizen.

That is part of the thinking behind MyMzansi.

It is possible to imagine a citizen having one trusted point of entry into government services.

It is possible to imagine a state that uses digital public infrastructure to reduce duplication, friction and confusion.

It is possible to imagine digital identity, data exchange, service discovery and secure transactions working together in a way that makes the simple things simple.

That matters because technology should not only make government more efficient. If done correctly, the promise is that government can be more humane.

But we must be honest about the condition attached to that promise.

A promise made only to the connected is not a promise to the nation.

If the digital state works beautifully for those with good smartphones, affordable data, high literacy, strong connectivity, English fluency and confidence online, then we have not built a digital state.

We have built a premium service layer for the already included.

That is why meaningful connectivity is so central to the work of the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies.

And I want to emphasise the word meaningful.

Connectivity is not meaningful simply because there is theoretical coverage on a map.

Meaningful connectivity means that the connection is affordable enough to use regularly, on capable devices, and by people where they live.

It means that citizens are not only connected to content, but connected to opportunities, services, markets, education, public information and democratic participation.

South Africa has made significant progress in expanding network coverage. We should not dismiss that progress. It reflects years of investment, policy work and private sector roll-out.

But we must also be honest that there remains a gap between coverage on paper and connectivity in practice.

But if we move public services onto digital channels without closing the digital divide, we will not democratise the state.

We merely create a state that is easier to access for those who are already equipped, and harder to access for those who were already struggling.

That is the danger.

Digital-first quietly becomes digital-only.

This is especially important as we look toward the next local government elections.

The programme for this Summit rightly asks how social listening and real-time data can turn citizen signals into responsive, credible communication and service delivery.

That is an important question.

But we must ask another one alongside it: whose signals are we listening to?

If only the connected receive real-time, credible information, then the digital divide becomes a democratic divide.

If only the loudest online voices shape the perception of public sentiment, then we risk mistaking visibility for representativity.

If misinformation reaches excluded communities faster than credible public information does, then government has not only a communications problem. It has a trust problem.

Democracy depends on more than the right to vote. It depends on the ability to receive information, test claims, understand choices, and make one's voice heard.

In the AI era, this becomes even more urgent.

Synthetic media will become easier to produce. False claims will move faster. Manipulated content will look more credible. Public communicators will be under pressure to respond quickly, accurately and sensitively.

Human intelligence plus artificial intelligence cannot mean simply using AI to automate the old habits of government. We cannot simply digitise inefficiency.

And it must mean recognising that the responsibility for digital inclusion does not sit only with citizens or only with government.

Digital literacy matters. Of course it does.

Citizens need the skills to navigate online spaces, identify risks, protect their information, and distinguish credible information from manipulation.

Government must invest in those skills. Schools, libraries, community centres, public servants, communicators and civil society all have a role to play.

But we must be careful not to turn digital literacy into a convenient way of blaming citizens for environments that were not designed with them in mind.

So let me say this plainly: do not ask citizens to be literate in an environment you have deliberately made illegible.

Do not tell people to "do their own research" when the architecture of the information environment rewards outrage over evidence.

Do not place the full burden of safety on users when systems are designed to maximise attention, frictionless sharing and behavioural prediction.

And do not speak about partnership with government while avoiding accountability for the public consequences of platform design.

This is not an attack on platforms.

Government needs technology companies. Citizens benefit from innovation. Public communicators use these tools every day. Social media has opened space for voices that were historically ignored by formal institutions. AI can help government understand needs faster, detect emerging risks, translate information, improve service access and support better decision-making.

But more is expected of allies.

And let me be clear about what government expects from social media platforms in this regard.

We do not start from the position that every potential online harm requires a new law, a new regulator, or a new layer of state control. Over-regulation can chill innovation, weaken open expression, and make digital spaces less dynamic. That is not the outcome we seek.

But avoiding over-regulation requires responsibility.

It requires platforms to build robust internal self-regulatory mechanisms that are responsive to South Africa's constitutional values, local norms, languages, social realities and democratic culture.

It requires clearer standards, better enforcement, faster response to harmful content, stronger protections for children and vulnerable users, and more serious investment in online dignity, safety and the productive use of the internet.

The best way for industry to avoid heavy-handed regulation is not to argue against regulation after harms have already occurred. It is to act responsibly enough that unnecessary regulation is not required in the first place.

Government has a duty to protect the interests of society. We would prefer to do that through partnership, accountability and responsible self-regulation. But where the public interest is not protected, where dignity and safety are undermined, and where online spaces are allowed to cause real social harm, government cannot simply stand aside.

We will regulate where it is necessary. But we would much rather see platforms take responsibility before regulation becomes unavoidable.

Partnership cannot mean that government carries the public-interest burden while platforms carry only the commercial upside.

If technology companies want to be long-term partners in South Africa's digital future, then they must help build a digital environment that South Africans can trust.

Trust is not built through slogans.

For public communicators, the challenge ahead is significant.

You are operating in an environment where attention is fragmented, trust is fragile, misinformation is persistent, and citizens expect speed without losing empathy.

You are being asked to communicate policy in real time, respond to crises across multiple platforms, interpret public sentiment, support service delivery, and protect institutional credibility in an age where a falsehood can travel faster than a correction.

That is not easy work.

But it is essential work.

Because communication is not decoration after a decision has been made. It is part of how a democratic state listens, explains, accounts and adapts.

The best government communication is not spin, or a mere performance that tries to convey responsiveness.

It is a public service.

And in the digital age, that public service must be rooted in a simple discipline: communicate in ways that reach the people who are easiest to miss.

That means designing for low data use, communicating across languages, acknowledging that offline channels are still necessary in some cases.

Ultimately, it means that digital-first does not become digital only.

The true measurement of a successful power shift toward a digital state is whether it includes the citizen who has been excluded, unheard, unseen, offline, priced out, or spoken for.

It is whether it gives the citizen a real voice, credible information and dignity in the way services are delivered.

Government cannot do this alone.

Platforms cannot do this alone.

Civil society cannot do this alone.

Communicators cannot do this alone.

But together, we can become co-guarantors of a more trusted digital public sphere.

Government must build inclusive digital public infrastructure and regulate in the public interest.

Platforms must design safer, more transparent and more accountable environments. Communicators cannot do this alone.

Communicators must translate complexity into clarity.

Citizens must be treated not as passive recipients of information, but as active participants in shaping the state.

That is the future we should be working toward. A digital state that is efficient but also inclusive. A digital state that is also innovative but accountable.

Thank you.

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