On the 24th of March, the Portfolio Committee on Communications and Digital Technologies hosted a roundtable discussion with podcasters and other relevant stakeholders under the theme: “A Multi Stakeholder Dialogue on Podcasting: Legislators, Policymakers, Regulators, Podcasters, and Industry Stakeholders Charting Balanced Regulation for Sustainable Growth, and Strong Accountability”.
Against the backdrop of the rapid growth of the podcasting sector in South Africa, the committee noted that the discussion was necessary to explore how podcasts fitted within the existing legal framework, possible co-regulatory models, mechanisms for handling complaints, and measures to support and nurture the sector.
The committee Chairperson, Ms Khusela Sangoni-Diko, said that while freedom of expression remains a cornerstone of South Africa’s constitutional democracy, it must be exercised alongside responsibility. She raised concerns relating to harmful content, including hate speech, misinformation and privacy violations, emphasising the need for accessible and effective remedies.
Laws of general application
As a report with recommendations that may influence future policy is currently being drafted, an obvious point worth making is that podcasts are not unregulated, despite what some of the discourse surrounding them is suggesting. They fall under existing laws of general application, such as those governing hate speech and defamation. This means there are already established legal mechanisms for complaints and recourse.
A defamation lawsuit involving prominent podcaster MacGyver Mukwevho (MacG) and media personality Minnie Dlamini, currently before the Equality Court, illustrates this point. Dlamini is suing Mukwevho over alleged defamatory and misogynistic remarks he made about her personal life and hygiene on his platform, Podcast and Chill, in August 2025.
This lawsuit, which has generated significant controversy and partly explains the push for regulation, demonstrates why there is no need for a separate regulatory framework for podcasts. Critics will retort with ‘whataboutism’ here and argue that podcasts should be specially regulated like other forms of broadcast media, but the point regarding established legal mechanisms still stands.
The regulation of speech
This leads to the next point of the piece. If regulation is unnecessary, then the push for it is not benign, and is likely part of a broader agenda of state and narrative control that could, over time, slide into censorship. In this regard, Ms Sangoni-Diko’s remarks on combating ‘hate speech’ and ‘misinformation’ are revealing. As has been argued elsewhere, in the South African context these are politically loaded terms that are being weaponised by some political elites to justify the silencing of critical and dissenting voices under the guise of protecting the information space.
There are podcasts that are highly and legitimately critical of the political establishment in the country, and it is not unreasonable to argue that they could come under pressure at worst, if the push for specialised regulation eventually succeeds.
The case for free speech rests not on a denial of the existence of phenomena such as hate speech and misinformation, but on the recognition that granting significant discretionary power to a few inherently biased actors to define and police terms whose meanings are highly contested is dangerous, and can lead to serious unintended consequences.
Different views and ideas must therefore compete in the marketplace, not because people are not exposed to hate speech and misinformation, but because a messy information environment is far better than a tightly regulated one that carries the ever-present risk of censorship.
A way forward
Where individuals, such as in the Minnie Dlamini case, feel aggrieved by comments made by certain podcasters, they should exercise their right to seek recourse through existing legal mechanisms. This point is not an endorsement of speech regulation in general, but an observation that existing legal instruments that do not necessitate the introduction of specialised regulation already exist.
The final point of the piece is that podcasters and other creators do not, frankly, need government support. Some of the largest and most influential podcast platforms, such as Podcast and Chill in this case, along with many smaller and growing ones, have been built by young people without any assistance from the state: young people who have created employment for themselves and for others.
These creators have not asked for assistance, and no one, under the guise of a thinly veiled agenda of control, should create the impression that they have.
The podcasting sector will continue to grow as an increasingly important component of the evolving media landscape in South Africa, and this is a positive development. There must be a realisation that the current push for specialised regulation is problematic, and that true innovation and growth will come from allowing the sector to develop without undue interference.
[Image: Hc Digital on Unsplash]
The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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