A 2021 Mozilla Foundation report termed Kenya’s social media “a well-established disinformation industry.”As Kenya heads to the polls on August 9, politicians are now employing all sorts of tricks to counter their competitors’ inroads. The use of hired social media influencers to propagate fake news is on the rise in Kenya, multiple reports indicate. Civil society has expressed concern at the rise of fake news in Kenya as elections fast approach. “We are concerned that social media influencers have become guns for hire to churn out disinformation,” said one of the lobby groups in April this year. The Mozilla Foundation has established that social media influencers are able to manipulate Twitter algorithms to determine trending topics.

Source: Standard Digital May 28, 2022 12:50 UTC