The short clip entitled “Kenya in 2020 if Raila Odinga is
elected president” paints a post-apocalypse scenario three years after a
Nasa election victory.
In the clip, the constitution has been suspended and dictatorship imposed.
Mr Odinga has been declared Life President. A state of terror and lawlessness reigns. Disease runs rampant.
The
country is falling apart as the economy collapses; health, education
and social services degenerate; electricity, piped water and other basic
utilities have decayed.
“Al-Shabaab
has taken control of North Eastern Kenya, the running scroll intones,
there is no money for clean water and women will give birth in the
streets”.
HAUNTING IMAGES
The
slick production with haunting images and matching background images is
probably one of the most scary political campaign propaganda videos to
ever circulate in Kenya.
It is
clearly the work of a professional producer tasked to depict President
Kenyatta’s main competitor in the worst possible light.
The
You Tube clip is as chilling as it is popular. Since it was first
uploaded on July 10, it has garnered over 80,000 views and has been
shared countless times on social media sites such Facebook, Twitter,
WhatsApp, Telegram and other chat platforms.
It
was posted on YouTube by a subscriber going by the name “The Real
Raila” probably related to virulent Jubilee propaganda website,
“therealraila.com” which is devoted to scare narratives on the Nasa
presidential candidate.
POSITIVE
With
headlines such as “crooked Raila,” the narratives are reminiscent of
the US presidential elections when then Republican presidential
candidate Donald Trump branded Hillary Clinton “crooked Hillary.”
On
the side of the spectrum is another website “uhuruforus.com” devoted to
painting President Kenyatta in positive light, even outlining the
promises he has kept among them “a cumulative addition of 2.3 million
new jobs.”
There are no facts or
supporting documents to support these claims of promises kept although
the website has a “blog” option full of positive stories listing the
government’s so-called “megaprojects.”
The
toxic anti-Raila messages provide an example of how political campaigns
are by-passing the laws on election advertising by pushing their
messages directly into the unregulated internet rather than use
conventional broadcast and print media.
The
laws of Kenya ban hate messaging and restrict the use of virulent
advertising, but the governing party’s re-election campaign has clearly
found a way to beat the regulations.
OFFENSIVE LITERATURE
The
Electoral Code of Conduct prohibits a political party or candidate from
distributing offensive literature, notices, campaign materials and
advertisements.
The Communications
Authority of Kenya (CA) says that the offensive online propaganda has
the potential to polarise the country along tribal lines as well as
perpetuate fear and hate among Kenyans.
“This
is propaganda meant to dissuade voters from exercising their democratic
right to elect leaders of their choice,” says CA Director-General
Francis Wangusi who, earlier this week, threatened to shut down websites
and social media sites that spread hate or incite violence.
Earlier
this month, the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC),
chaired by former National Assembly Speaker Francis ole Kaparo, and the
CA jointly released “Guidelines on Prevention of Dissemination of
Undesirable Bulk and Premium Rate Political Messages and Political
Social Media Content via Electronic Communications Networks”.
SOCIAL MEDIA
The
document provides guidelines for political social media communication
and requires all political social media content written “in a language
that avoids a tone and words that constitute hate speech, ethnic
contempt and incitement to violence, harassment, abusive, violence,
defamatory or intimidating”.
The
guidelines are also very clear that non-compliance will lead to
penalties according to the NCIC Act, Penal Code, the Election Offences
Act, among other relevant laws.
The
hate videos and online articles qualify as hate speech according to
Section 13(1) of the National Cohesion and Integration Act.
Under
the law, any person who commits a hate speech offence is liable to a
fine not exceeding Sh1 million or to imprisonment for a term not
exceeding three years, or both.
HATE SPEECH
A
person who spreads hate speech is, among others, one who “publishes or
distributes written material, shows or plays a recording of visual
images” which is threatening, abusive or insulting with the intention of
stirring up ethnic hatred.
The hate
videos and websites have been running for more than a month now, but
there is no indication that authorities have sought to shut them down or
apprehend the perpetrators.
One
difficulty is that it is hard to link the messages directly to the
Jubilee Party or establish that they have been approved by President
Kenyatta’s election campaign.
Jubilee can easily plead ignorance even though it is the beneficiary of the dirty-tricks campaign.
Contacted by the Nation, party Secretary-General Raphael Tuju distanced Jubilee from the online propaganda.
TUJU
“I
do not know any such sites. And there is no way it can be argued that
we endorse messages of a site I do not even know,” said Mr Tuju.
According
to Mr Tuju, the fact that the sites were against Mr Odinga and another
pro-President Kenyatta did not connote an association with the Jubilee
Party leader.
However, the links have
been enthusiastically shared on social media by party supporters and
officials associated with the Jubilee campaign.
Cyber-crime
sleuths would be able to trace the videos and website back to the
actual producers, owners and publishers, but for now the authorities are
more focused on tracking down freelancers and individuals who may be
posting offensive political messages on social media, and leaving the
more dangerous campaigns alone.
The electoral body admits the difficulty in catching up with the architects of online hate speech.
FACEBOOK
“IEBC has had its bad share of post-truth era messages,” says spokesperson Andrew Limo.
IEBC maintains that the law is similar for both online and offline messages.
Hate speech is the same whether uttered during a rally or tweeted or posted on Facebook or a website or even YouTube.
While
IEBC insists that they are working with law enforcement agencies and
the NCIC to address this issue, few people have been brought to justice
for spreading hate speech on social media.
Mr
Wangusi says that the CA is collaborating with the NCIC and other
stakeholders to contain the misuse of technology during the elections
period.
ONLINE
Dr
Muiru Ngugi, a lecturer at the University of Nairobi’s Journalism and
Mass Communication School, suggests that these online messages create a
hyper-real or mediated reality which is more important than the facts
beneath.
“We have learnt a lot from
the US election. Donald Trump by-passed the mainstream media and used
fake news websites and social media (especially Twitter) to talk to his
people.
In our case, Uhuru is doing
the same,” says Dr Ngugi. “He is trying to by-pass mainstream media to
talk to the public using such kind of real estate.”
The
use of election campaign propaganda is not new. However, there is a new
wave of propaganda never seen before, which researchers at the Oxford
Internet Institute in University of Oxford have called “computational
propaganda” to explain the phenomenon of digital manipulation and
misinformation used to influence opinion on public policy and politics.
PROPAGANDISTS
Propagandists
now have at their disposal high-end and computerised tools of
information dissemination and obfuscation such as “bots” which are
automatic social media accounts that churn out messages giving an
illusion of support and popularity. These “bots” or “chatbots” are
software programmes with basic communication skills capable of tweeting
on an issue.
Through the use of
hashtags on social media such as the Jubilee administration’s
#GoKDelivers, these bots or fake programmed social media accounts are
capable of churning similar tweets to cause an illusion of online
support and consequently manipulate the social media users.
Social
media propagandists are also using tools such as algorithms and
automation as well as human curation to distribute misinformation on
purpose to win the hearts and minds of voters.
Use
of such tools is a speciality of British company Cambridge Analytics,
which has reportedly been retained by Jubilee after boasting significant
successes on the Trump and Brexit campaigns.
INTERNET
The
2017 study on computational propaganda found that bots and such kind of
social media messaging affected the flow of information in two ways.
First
by “manufacturing consensus” which means giving an illusion of online
support and popularity of one candidate in order to inspire real support
offline, and secondly, by democratising propaganda by opening up the
use and spread of propaganda with anyone with an opinion and internet
connection.
Dr Ngugi agrees with
this; “Formerly, public agenda would be set by the political elite,” but
this is no longer the case. “Social media political agenda is now set
by all kinds of people and these sources are shifting the ground.”
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