For years, much of the Global North dismissed the phrase "fake news” as populist theatre, a slogan weaponized to discredit journalism and destabilize democratic institutions. When a myriad of Western leaders formalized the term in the political lexicon, Western commentators treated it as a dangerous aberration. A rhetorical virus. A deviation from liberal norms.

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Yet for much of the Global South, the phenomenon was neither new nor surprising.

Long before "fake news” entered Western political discourse, entire nations in Africa, Latin America, and parts of Asia had lived under externally curated narratives, framed, filtered, and broadcast by institutions far removed from their lived realities. The difference is that the disinformation infrastructure only became scandalous when it began circulating inward.

Now, as Western democracies confront the corrosive effects of manipulated narratives at home, there is a reluctant recognition: the tools were always there. They were simply deployed elsewhere first.

The export of perception

Misinformation and disinformation are not accidental byproducts of digital modernity. They are instruments. One is sloppy; the other is strategic. Both shape geopolitical outcomes.

For decades, media ecosystems, think tanks, advocacy networks, and diplomatic messaging hubs in the Global North have exercised disproportionate power in defining how Global South states are perceived. Governance successes are minimized. Security complexities are flattened. Historical context is selectively applied. Entire national identities are distilled into crisis motifs.

These portrayals have real consequences: investment flows shift, diplomatic leverage weakens, sanctions frameworks harden, and public opinion in donor states calcifies around simplified morality plays.

The scramble has now intensified. As multipolarity reshapes alliances and emerging economies assert agency, the narrative contest has grown sharper. Reports are reframed. Headlines recalibrated. Language subtly altered. Yesterday’s framing is quietly revised when it no longer serves strategic interests.

But narrative manipulation has diminishing returns. The informational asymmetry that once enabled it is eroding. Digital literacy in the Global South has expanded. Alternative media ecosystems have matured. Diaspora communities have become narrative counterweights. The monopoly over global storytelling is fractured. And in some cases, the exaggerations have begun to backfire.

When the toolkit rebounds

The irony is difficult to ignore: institutions that once dismissed claims of narrative engineering now openly debate algorithmic distortion, influence operations, and weaponized information within their own borders.

What was once framed as paranoia abroad is now a domestic emergency.

The discomfort is structural. If public trust collapses in London, Washington, or Berlin, the institutional scaffolding that sustained narrative authority weakens everywhere. The credibility dividend that allowed the Global North to arbitrate global legitimacy begins to erode.

This is not about equating all criticism with conspiracy. Nor is it about romanticizing any state’s record. It is about acknowledging asymmetry that narrative dominance has long functioned as soft power muscle. And muscle can be overextended.

Godfather effect

There is also a deeper question: who protects whom?

The post–World War II order positioned certain states as guarantors of international law, human rights, and global stability. Yet enforcement has often been selective. Legal principles invoked in one theater are suspended in another. Violations condemned in adversaries are contextualized in allies.

The Munich Security Conference and similar gatherings frequently reiterate commitments to rules-based order. But rules require consistent application to retain moral force. When they appear discretionary, smaller states begin to question whether protection is principled or transactional.

The result is a "godfather effect”: protection framed as benevolence, but conditioned on alignment. Narrative discipline becomes part of the bargain. Step outside the script, and reputational costs follow.

For countries in the Global South that lack expansive military umbrellas or veto power in global institutions, the only durable shield is credibility grounded in demonstrable truth. That path is harder. It requires internal coherence, disciplined governance, and strategic communication that does not mirror the excesses it critiques.

But it also exposes an uncomfortable reality: information warfare is not merely about falsehood. It is about emphasis, omission, sequencing, and repetition. It is about which crises are amplified and which are backgrounded.

A shifting terrain

We are entering a phase where narrative control is no longer monopolized. Artificial intelligence accelerates both distortion and verification. Archival evidence resurfaces in real time. State and non-state actors alike contest framing within minutes.

In this environment, the Global North’s long-standing toolkit - agenda-setting, selective outrage, reputational signalling - no longer operates uncontested. Audiences compare inconsistencies. They track shifts in language. They notice when rhetoric once dismissed as dangerous is quietly normalized.

The consequence is not the collapse of Western influence, but its recalibration. Authority now depends less on institutional prestige and more on consistency.

The Global South has endured decades of reputational management imposed from outside. It has learned to maneuver within, around, and sometimes despite it. What has changed is that the information architecture is no longer unidirectional.

The world is discovering that narrative power, like any other form of power, is finite when overused.And when the machinery designed to shape perception turns inward, the lesson becomes unavoidable: credibility cannot be selectively applied. It must be universal, or it will eventually erode at its source.

Robert Kayinamura is the Deputy Permanent Representative at the Permanent Mission of Rwanda to the United Nations.

Laura Noella Rwiliriza is a communication specialist who continues to work across both the private and public sectors.