harare24dmin By Kelly Ngarava
Misinformation thrives on incentives, and ZimEye’s incentive structure is clear. Outrage pays. Attention pays. Authority figures pay the most.
That is why Simba Chikanza consistently targets senior State officials, and why the Director General of the Central Intelligence Organisation, Dr Fulton Mangwanya, has been dragged into sensational narratives.
This is not accidental. It is strategic.
Security institutions symbolise authority, stability, and secrecy. Any allegation linked to them triggers instant curiosity and fear.
That emotional reaction drives clicks. In the digital attention economy, nothing travels faster than claims involving intelligence services.
For a platform built on traffic rather than verification, the CIO is a guaranteed magnet.
ZimEye’s pattern is familiar. Headlines are framed to imply scandal without evidence. Anonymous claims are elevated to the status of fact. Context is stripped away. Normal institutional activity is recast as conspiracy.
The reader is pushed toward suspicion before any proof is presented. That is not investigative journalism. It is engagement engineering.
Dr Mangwanya is not targeted because of demonstrated wrongdoing. He is targeted because of his office.
As CIO Director General, his role intersects with national security, intelligence coordination, and strategic state interests. Those realities are difficult to explain, verify, or sensationalise responsibly.
That makes them perfect raw material for distortion. The less the public understands the function of an intelligence institution, the easier it is to manufacture doubt around it.
There is also a personal economy at play. ZimEye operates as a click driven enterprise. Advertising revenue rises with traffic. Traffic rises with controversy. High ranking officials generate far more engagement than policy analysis or factual reporting.
Each article attacking a senior figure feeds algorithms that convert outrage into income. The target absorbs reputational damage. The publisher collects revenue.
This is why ZimEye rarely applies the same scrutiny to mundane governance successes or institutional reforms. Stability does not trend. Quiet professionalism does not provoke rage. Manufactured scandal does. In this model, national cohesion is collateral damage.
The belief that this conduct is consequence free is outdated. Globally, courts are narrowing the gap between online publication and legal accountability.
In the United States and Europe, individuals have faced civil judgments, asset seizures, and platform sanctions for defamatory and coordinated misinformation campaigns.
Jurisdiction follows impact, not location. Digital footprints are traceable. Payment streams are visible. Anonymous publication is increasingly a myth.
Zimbabweans must recognise their role in this cycle. Clicking is not passive. It is payment. Sharing is amplification. Commenting is promotion.
Every interaction finances a business model that feeds on mistrust.
Freedom of expression is not a licence to defame or destabilise. Journalism demands evidence. Criticism demands responsibility. When platforms abandon those standards, audiences must withdraw economic support.
ZimEye’s fixation on figures like Dr Mangwanya reveals not bravery, but dependence on outrage. When attention is the product, power becomes the target.
Zimbabweans should refuse to be used as the revenue stream for smear economics. Truth deserves better incentives.
