Every year since 2013, Africa Check has fact-checked South Africa's state of the nation address (Sona) - the speech the president delivers in February to mark the beginning of the political calendar, officially open parliament, summarise the government's aims for the year ahead, and recap the one gone by.
After all these years, our researchers can often guess what the president is going to say, long before he opens his mouth.
We can't see the future, and no one is sneaking us a copy of the speech in advance. But our team spends the weeks beforehand tracking down data on social grants, housing, unemployment and other major topics so that when the president brings them up, the facts are already right in front of us.
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This is one part of a technique called "pre-bunking", which involves providing accurate information to pre-empt false claims, rather than waiting to respond as they come up.
Here's how we do it, and how you can get involved while watching this year's Sona.
The ideas behind pre-bunking are not new, but older or more academic resources will probably refer to it as "inoculation theory". First developed in the 1960s, it suggests that protecting a society against false information can be like protecting the body against disease.
Sometimes, the best way to fight a disease is by diagnosing it early and using medications that kill it or lessen its symptoms. In the world of fact-checking, this might be equivalent to spotting a false claim on social media and publishing a report debunking it. This does work, but it has limitations. Like a physical disease, false information can cause a great deal of harm before it is addressed, and sometimes diagnosis comes too late for a cure to be effective. Research has firmly established that - especially in the chaotic environment of social media - false claims spread further and faster than the debunks that come after them.
In contrast, pre-bunking works like an inoculation, a process in which a person is exposed to an infectious disease in order to produce immunity against it. This is the principle behind vaccines, which reduce the severity or likelihood of contracting a disease or passing it to others. In the same way, warning someone to stay on the lookout for false information can produce psychological inoculation against believing or sharing false claims.
Like real vaccines, if they reach enough people, these approaches can prevent outbreaks before they start.
So how do you apply inoculation theory?
Like an Africa Check researcher preparing for the Sona, you'll never be able to predict exactly what is going to happen, but it is possible to predict some important general trends.
If you know what claims to expect, you can prepare yourself and others to verify them.
For example, in his 2025 Sona, president Cyril Ramaphosa mixed up the number of social grants with the number of social grant beneficiaries. (In short, one person may receive multiple grants.) Africa Check immediately spotted the error, because Ramaphosa made the same mistake at Sona 2024 and in September 2023. So long before the speech, we had tracked down the accurate figures, prepared for him to make this mistake again.
There is often an expectation that fact-checkers are only interested in big, malicious lies - deliberate distortions of the truth. But even seemingly small, well-meaning mistakes can do real damage, especially when they shape how people understand issues like poverty or how social programmes are doing. At Africa Check, we pay attention to these smaller mistakes too, so that the public - and the presidency - can have well-informed conversations about the country's realities.
Familiarise yourself with common false claims about a topic. If a mistake is easy to make, it tends to be repeated.
False information also rushes to fill gaps in understanding. So be especially on the lookout for topics:
- About which there is little credible information available. Don't let unverified rumours take the place of facts.
- For which available information is inaccessible or difficult to understand. Paywalled articles full of dense jargon don't help the average person stay informed.
- That attract a great deal of public attention, or are especially important. When many people need or share information about a topic, some of them are bound to slip up on the facts.
It's impossible to predict every false claim, but you'll be able to debunk more of them if you're on the lookout from the start.
But once you've informed yourself, the next thing to do is inform others.
Once you've prepared yourself to spot and debunk false claims the moment they crop up, you've also got everything you need to inoculate other people against false information.
When sharing information for the sake of pre-bunking, there are two broad purposes to keep in mind.
First, pre-bunking warns others to stay on the lookout for false claims and prepares them to spot errors. It helps to share examples of previously debunked claims, and tips about how to distinguish facts from cleverly disguised fiction.
Here are a few of the errors we've spotted in previous state of the nation addresses:
- Mixing up categories or terms, such as the difference between "number of grant beneficiaries" and "number of social grants".
- Specific technical language that doesn't mean what the public might think it does. For example, a "work opportunity" isn't the same as a permanent job.
- Correct numbers applied to the wrong context or framing. In 2024, Ramaphosa was technically correct about the percentage of households that had access to the internet, but the majority of these didn't have internet access at home.
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Second, pre-bunking can point out errors and false claims in advance. Getting the facts in front of someone makes them less likely to believe a false claim later on. Pre-bunking might make you more confident and better informed when discussing current affairs, or stave off an argument with that coworker who only gets their news from social media.
If you are someone's trusted source of information - whether you're a leader in your local community, a social media influencer, or simply the person in your family group chat who's always up to date with the news - you can help others avoid false information using the same pre-bunking principles.
Share the resources and information that you've collected with others. Tell them what false claims have been debunked in the past and why they were wrong. If you need a place to get started, browse through Africa Check's reports on Sona 2025, 2024 and 2023. Or check out our recent report on which promises made in 2025 have actually been kept.
Getting the facts in front of people early will prepare them to catch any false claims that slip into Sona 2026, and encourage them to listen to the speech a little more carefully.
And if all your preparation helps you spot a false claim - whether that be during Sona 2026, or anywhere else you get your information - share it with Africa Check. We're always curious to know what false information is circulating and how people are spotting it.
