Elections in Kenya 2022: Dangerous disinformation campaign is plagued on social media

Failed videos and leaflets that promote hate speeches exploded in the run -up to the hot competitive elections in Kenya on Tuesday on social media, whereby the candidates called for rest in view of the fear of repeating the mass riots from 2007.

The two main candidates, deputy President William Ruto and the former opposition leader Raila Odinga, are roughly on paralysis, and speculation is increasing that Kenya could experience his first runoff election for the presidency

To differentiate their candidates, some supporters have turned to social media to cloud the water.

In a widespread video clip, Mr. Ruto stands on his shiny land cruiser and seems to insult large parts of the electorate because of their ethnicity.

"The people from Westkenia who are here ... The people from Centralkenia who are here ... ashamed!" He screams in view of the flood of supporters.

As a politician, the main opponent, the film material shared at the end of July, it immediately became a viral hit. It is not clear whether they knew that it was a fake.

Twitter quickly removed the clip and local media published the original speech, which shows that Mr. Ruto had said nothing like that. But the damage was done. Tens of thousands of people had seen it.

It is just an example of a campaign that was dominated by mud battles and fake claims and prompted both candidates to call for peaceful vote in separate services in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Sunday.

The use for the most developed economy of East Africa is high. Every choice of the past 20 years has been challenged in any way, many of them being clouded by violence or controversial results.

The country was shaken to the mark after the 2007 elections. Hate speeches among leaders of some of the 45 ethnic groups of the country triggered a wave of violence. Officially, at least 1,100 died in the clashes, but the actual number is probably far higher.

It is not the first time that Kenyan politicians are trying to apply extreme social media tactics to change the voters. During the 2017 elections in the East African nation, President Kenyatta's election campaign team employed the controversial British data company Cambridge Analytica, which had played a role in the Brexit referendum and Donald Trump's presidential campaign last year.

But this time things are different. "A lot of fake information and hate speeches are now homemade," says Nerima Wako, the founder of Siasa Place, a non -governmental organization that trains young people in political and bourgeois matters.

"We have massive influencers with millions of supporters who have chosen one side," she adds.

"civil servants can share fake videos and have no consequences."

A study published in July brought 20
advertisements on Facebook spread hate speeches in Kenya without moderation through the social media platform.

After the investigation, the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC), an autonomous public institution, provided a seven-day ultimatum to strengthen its moderation processes at the end of July.

and at the beginning of this year the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organization that works for Internet freedoms, published a report in which it criticizes the Chinese social media giant Tiktok for not moderating videos with hate speeches.

It turned out that some contributions used pictures of violence in 2007 and 2008 to stimulate members of some communities to take revenge for past violence.

This prompted the company to develop a polling guide for its Kenyan users and to lead a campaign in order to make it report to report harmful content.