In the last August elections, what happened in Kenya was a breach of the country’s electoral integrity.
Tensions were all over Kenya during the August election, and social media seems to have played the biggest role. This comes amid claims that they were prepared to prevent the spread of lies and rumors about what happened before and after the election.
Twitter and Tiktok banned political advertising in 2019. But what was experienced in Kenya was a violation of the electoral integrity of the nation. When politicians are not allowed to campaign for 48 hours before the election due to Kenyan law, advertisements continue to run up until and after the election. Money seems to have been exchanged for the advertisement.
Facebook claimed that its systems were secure. However, it was unable to detect hate speech advertisements on its platform. They had a team of Swahili speakers and AI tools to detect any lies. But hate speech ads in Swahili were detected on the internet.
Politicians hired influencers to spread their negative comments. These people would create a new account with disguised personal details, and with a large following, they would post a lie.
The decision to hold the country’s first digital election was supposed to be the best thing that could happen. The elections were to be free and fair without any drama. The Kenyan Electoral Commission (IEBC) has made Form 34B available on their website, allowing anyone to conduct their own counting. Media houses, political parties, and NGOs set up their tallying centers. This contributed to even more fake news. The figures differed in all the tallying centers, confusing the public as to whom to believe.
An example of this is when fake BBC and CNN pages were created. The presidential winner was up on the pages before the electoral commission chairperson had announced the results. These accounts were not labeled, leading to misinformation. Imposter News had seized control of social media platforms.
How to spot the fake ads
Anonymous accounts or fake groups When you cannot tell who wrote the news or their contact, there’s something malicious. These accounts were created around that time to confuse the public.
When the news is good, think twice. Some posts may be too good to be true. How can a rival step down a day before the voting day?
Videos and images can be taken out of context. Try to connect the headline or context to the images displayed. Fake news always has an image that does not match the text. A video surfaced showing presidential candidate Raila Odinga conceding defeat to now-President William Ruto. The picture was from 2017, when he was accepting the Supreme Court ruling on the petition he had filed.
This propaganda encourages ethnic politics
During the 2007 elections, local radio played a significant role in the country’s violence. What the journalists were doing was inciting their people in their vernacular language. This is the same thing happening with social media today. It divides people into their ethnic groups.
Low voter turnout: one loses confidence in the politician after being painted negatively and decides not to vote altogether.
Wherever there is a lie or ethnic politics, violence is more likely to occur.When citizens are filled with anger and frustration, they will express it in an aggressive manner.
Steps to end this
Have both human moderators and AI models for better efficiency. These platforms should check their systems to avoid any future violence.
These social platforms failed to have moderators on their teams. Like in 2007, when the vernacular radio stations incited the masses to use their local languages, it has been the same with Twitter, Facebook, and Tiktok. They had Swahili moderators but failed to place the vernacular moderators, or had only a few if they had one. A lie in your local language hits differently, and people know that.
For non-native English-speaking countries, there should be moderators for the local dialects. In Kenya, hate is not spread in Swahili alone but in the vernacular languages. There should be moderators for the major languages in a country.
Main photo: M-PESA mobile money and Equity agent in Nairobi, Kenya By Fiona Graham, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77829776
