As Kenya nears the August 9 General Election, the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) has highlighted TikTok as the leading social media platform in spreading hate messages.
NCIC, in a weekly report, noted the increase from 14 cases in the previous week to 20 cases between July 15 and July 21 on TikTok. Facebook was second with 12 cases while Twitter had 11 cases of hate speech.
"The technological capacity enabling a comprehensive analysis and scraping of data has been crippled by the increase in hate speech cases in TikTok," read the NCIC report in part.
The actual increase in the number of hate speech cases and having a specialized team to handle the issue were the main factors that led to more cases being flagged.
According to the report, two cases were highlighted on Telegram. The Commission is fixed on ensuring peace is upheld before, during and after the August 9 polls.
In an earlier statement, NCIC had issued a warning to Facebook for allegedly failing to promote peace during this electioneering period.
Danvas Makori, a NCIC commissioner, stated that the social platform had allowed 20 advertisements with the potential to incite or promote violence.
Additionally, the Commission is looking for ways to obtain data and analyze the type of information being shared on WhatsApp groups.
“This is limiting our ability to accurately determine the seeders and amplifiers as well as the different clusters responsible for hate speech and disinformation,” noted the Commission on existing challenges.
The public was urged to avoid using video content describing historical events that can trigger tribal conflict and incitement. The use of hashtags that attack different political candidates was discouraged by the Commission.
On Thursday, July 14, TikTok launched an in-app guide tailored to cater for the upcoming General Election. The Kenya Election hub was launched to help Kenyans get verified information regarding the polls.
"We have launched an in-app guide to the 2022 General Election product features and hosted in-market activities to support our vision to help our community access factual and authoritative information about the Kenyan General Election ahead of August 9," the platform stated.
