NAIROBI, Kenya, April 8 – The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) says Facebook has the highest level of content for hate speech on all social media platforms.
Speaking during a press conference, the Commission’s Chairperson Samuel Kobia stated that political temperatures have been on the rise on social media since the beginning of the year exacerbated by political parties’ nominations, the stoning of Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) Raila Oding’a chopper, and the shooting of Mvita aspirant Ali Mwatsu.
“The social media platforms we monitored include Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube among others. The highest number we identified to be spreading hate/incitement was Facebook followed by Twitter,” he said.
“In the last week of March, we had Facebook having 80 percent of all flagged cases while on Twitter there were 20 percent. This trend has been the same for the whole month of March.”
Kobia noted that most social media platforms are being formed along tribal lines and keep on changing and increasing as we gear towards the general elections.
Mostly, we attribute these inciters to specific groups in different social media platforms such as The Kalenjin Forum, Raila Odinga for President and the Marsabit County We all Want,” he pointed out.
Further, he observed that the commission faces challenges such as anonymous accounts and manual monitoring that make it difficult to monitor and investigate inciting content.
Nevertheless, NCIC has adopted various peace initiatives such as targeted sensitization on women and the youth, training of bodaboda riders on cohesion in partnership with the National Youth Service, inter-intra community dialogue, and integrated media campaigns including peace messaging.
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