By Progress Rudo Nangati
ZIMBABWE, like many other African societies, holds fast to the philosophy of Ubuntu, ‘I am because we are.’ Ubuntu teaches us that a person’s wellbeing is intrinsically linked to the wellbeing of others. Yet, in our social media feeds, it is not Ubuntu that drives attention, but vulgarity and harassment.
Last month, some of Zimbabwe’s biggest influencers, posted on Facebook promoting a new song laced with sexualised lyrics. What began as simple promotional posts swiftly leapt across platforms, within hours, fans had reposted snippets to Instagram and remixed them on TikTok, where the song and clip morphed into a dance challenge and a stream of memes. The cascade was instant and relentless.
But, these are not organic trends emerging from our communities, they are the product of algorithms coded thousands of miles away to maximise clicks and profit. The applause for profane content is no accident, it is the engineered logic of digital platforms, and in this design, children are collateral damage.
In order to protect our country’s children and uphold the true spirit of Ubuntu, our government must adopt robust digital safety laws that hold technology companies accountable for the harmful content their algorithms amplify.
Around the world, there’s rising alarm over how social media algorithms shape youth wellbeing. Europe’s Digital Services Act compels platforms to disclose how their recommendation engines work. In the United States, lawmakers question Tik Tok and Instagram executives about teenage depression and self-harm, but Southern Africa remains largely unprotected in this conversation.
Without regional digital safety strategies, our children are growing up inside systems that rank provocation above dignity.
Algorithms offer shortcuts to fame, musicians with explicit lyrics go viral not because communities consciously choose them, but because shock content guarantees engagement.
This is the economics of attention and children are among its most exposed participants. Harmless clicks quickly build into normalised vulgarity, peer pressure, and, as international research shows, pathways into bullying, exploitation, and long-term mental health effects.
Zimbabwe’s frail policy framework means families have little recourse when harm occurs, widening a dangerous gap between global rights commitments and local realities.
Some may defend this as ‘free expression,’ but what we are witnessing is not a free marketplace of ideas; it is a manipulated environment where algorithms deliberately push the most shocking content to the widest audience. Others insist that keeping children safe online is simply a job for parents, but no family, no matter how vigilant, can outmatch billion-dollar systems designed to capture attention. Parents need tools and policies that level the playing field.
Responsibility must be shared, and platforms must be held to account.
Donors, human rights organisations, and technology partners must step in to reverse this trajectory. We need regional frameworks that hold platforms accountable, civil society empowered with resources to confront algorithmic harms, and governments willing to legislate for children’s dignity in the same way they legislate for their safety offline.
What is at stake is far greater than fleeting viral songs, it is the right of every child to grow up in a digital environment that respects their humanity and culture rather than exploits their attention.
(Progress Rudo Nangati is a child protection specialist with Childline Zimbabwe and a Public Voices Fellow on the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse with The OpEd Project.)
