Could fake news provoke violence in Kenya’s elections?
Daily life, for better or worse, revolves around having access to the internet, and the Kenyan government wants to assure its citizens that that will not change during the upcoming general election cycle. Kenya’s general elections to elect a new President and members of the National Assembly will take place on August 9 and the race is close and tense. Much of the tension is the result of the outgoing president, Uhuru Kenyatta, throwing his support behind opposition leader Raila Odinga rather than William Ruto, the current deputy president.
Waves of disinformation pushed by paid social media influencers have been a growing concern in the run-up to elections that some experts worry could lead to violent eruptions. The country is still haunted by clashes during the 2007 elections that left over 1,000 people dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. Kenya’s National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC), set up in the wake of the violence 15 years ago, rates the likelihood of electoral violence as just about “medium high risk,” while in Nairobi County, home to the capital city, the risk of violence is considered to be “very high.”
While access to digital resources has grown exponentially, studies suggest that the political conversation online in Kenya is often toxic, particularly on TikTok. Research by Mozilla Foundation fellow Odanga Madung shows that “hate speech, incitement against communities, and synthetic and manipulated content…is both present and spreading on the platform.” TikTok, the report argues, needs to do more to implement its own rules on objectionable and inflammatory content. Kenya is one of the few countries in the region that has not deliberately shut down the internet. According to a report from Access Now, 12 countries in Africa had shut down the internet 19 times last year. “Elections and protests are common spurs for shutdowns in Africa and around the world,” noted the report, “as authorities use them to assert or maintain control of populations, to the detriment of citizens’ fundamental rights and democratic freedoms.” If Kenya has been circumspect, neighboring countries like Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia have blocked the internet during past elections and moments of civil unrest over the last two years. And just last month, Sudan’s military government shut down the internet in capital city Khartoum, as thousands protested junta rule.
Kenya’s Interior Minister, Dr. Fred Matiangi, assured the public earlier this month that the elections will be free and open and that there would be no internet shutdowns to stifle conversation and debate. Of course, internet shutdowns are not just about access to information, they can also have disastrous economic consequences. Bridget Andere, an Africa Policy Analyst at Access Now, told me, “Private businesses and individuals need the internet, and so when the internet is shut down, it affects the economy directly.”