How can Kenya win the battle against #hatespeech online?
What you need to know:
- The political configuration at the top is very fluid, short-term, and not worth dying for. Why die for someone who, in four years’ time, will form a coalition with your current “enemy”?
- Kenyans will continue seething underneath along politically motivated tribal lines, with a potentially more explosive repercussion in the future.
Following the tragic and heinous Mpeketoni attacks, social media have taken the simmering online clashes a notch higher. A quick search on popular Kenyan blogs, Twitter handles, Facebook accounts, Listservs, amongst other online resources, reveals a deeply divided nation.
The amount of, and energy behind, some of the posts betrays how troubled and divided we are as a nation. It seems to confirm that Kenya is simply an amalgamation of tribes assembled together by a colonial geographical experiment that is now threatening to explode.
We keep wondering why we regularly feature in the annual list of failed states. Some of the indicators cited for a failed state include ineffective or little control by government over parts of its territory, non-provision of public service, widespread corruption and criminality and involuntary movement of populations.
ETHNIC VITRIOL
This description seems to be taken straight out of Mpeketoni, Baringo or Wajir and forms the basis of the inflamed emotions currently sweeping the online space. There are two distinct groups fighting online; each group is characterized along the tribal cleavages that constitute the bulk of the two leading coalition parties — the governing Jubilee and the opposition CORD coalitions.
With around 50 per cent of the Kenyan population online, the government faces a big challenge in reacting to the ever-diminishing gap between the online and offline activities of Kenyan society.
It is clear that the increasing production and consumption of ethnic vitriol manifested online is bound to spill onto Kenyan streets and neighbourhoods.
We are, as a nation, facing an online threat whose magnitude is greater than we are willing to admit.
HATE SPEECH AND THE LAW
How should government respond to this threat? Should we shut down the blogs, Facebook and Twitter accounts of perceived ringleaders? Already some online bloggers and Twitter users have been called to account by the police and the National Cohesion and Integration Commission.
Some may face charges in a court of law for hate speech or something related. But are these measures sufficient to hold or push back the increasing ethnic tensions reflected online?
Perhaps not. Even if we shut down the Internet and arrest the bloggers, Kenyans will continue seething underneath along politically motivated tribal lines, with potentially more explosive repercussions in the future.
Clamping down on political bloggers may suppress the messenger, but it will not inhibit the message. A better approach would be to establish the genesis of the ethnic divisions and arrest what is obviously providing fodder for politicians to use in their selfish endeavours to ascend to, or remain in power.
POLITICAL GAIN
Essentially, the self-declared online armies from either side of the political divide are being used by those in or outside power for short-term political gain.
It is important to frequently remind ourselves that the political configuration at the top is very fluid, short-term, and not worth dying for. Why die for someone who, in four years’ time, will form a coalition with your current “enemy”?
This is the type of messaging that civil society, the government and the rest of us need to start spreading as an initial measure to reduce the increasing ethnic tensions manifested online.
Thereafter, the government should quickly address, or be seen to be addressing, the historical injustices revolving around land, social inclusion, and equitable distribution of resources, amongst others.
Fortunately, all these pertinent issues and how to address them have been well captured in our new Constitution. We just need to implement these guidelines more expeditiously, and hopefully this will dampen the rampant online wars and hate speech witnessed in recent times.
Mr Walubengo is a lecturer at the Multimedia University of Kenya, Faculty of Computing and IT. [email protected] Twitter:@jwalu
