Kenya’s ethnic cohesion watchdog has given Meta’s Facebook seven days to crack down on hate speech and incitement on the platform relating to next month’s election or its operations will be suspended .
East Africa’s largest economy is campaigning ahead of August 9 presidential, legislative and local elections.
Advocacy group Global Witness said in a report on Thursday that Facebook accepted and ran more than a dozen political ads that broke Kenya’s rules.
Kenya’s National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) said the report corroborates its own internal findings.
“Facebook violates the laws of our country. They have allowed themselves to be a vehicle for hate speech and incitement, misinformation and disinformation,” NCIC Commissioner Danvas Makori said on Friday.
Meta has taken “significant steps” to eliminate hate speech and inflammatory content, and is stepping up those efforts ahead of the election, a spokesperson for the company told Reuters.
“We have dedicated teams of Swahili speakers and proactive detection technology to help us remove harmful content quickly and at scale,” the spokesperson said.
The NCIC has held talks with the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK), which regulates social media companies, and it will recommend suspension of Meta’s operations, Makori said.
He accused Meta of violating Kenya’s constitution and laws governing hate speech and the use of social media platforms.
“This country is bigger than a social media company or an entity. We will not allow Facebook, or any other social media company, to compromise security,” he said.
Supporters of leading presidential candidates, veteran opposition Raila Odinga and Vice President William Ruto, have used social media platforms to praise their candidates, persuade others to join them, or accuse opposing parties of various misdeeds.
The NCIC is a statutory body set up to foster ethnic harmony among Kenya’s 45 tribes, some of which have attacked each other in violence in previous polls.
© Thomson Reuters 2022
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