Disinformation, social inequalities and young people’s digital citizenship during conflict and crisis in Ethiopia

This article explores how gender, rural – urban and regional inequalities in youth digital citizenship shape political participation during conflict. Drawing on multiple rounds of longitudinal qualitative research with young people in Ethiopia during and after the 2020–2022 ethnic conflict in the north, we show that key facets of digital citizenship – including access to online information, digital literacy skills, and opportunities for offline verification and political participation – are distinctly shaped by gender and geography. These inequalities both facilitate the spread of misinformation and disinformation that deepens polarization and distrust among youth, and also exclude young women from political participation, online and offline.