Open Talk: Big Tech & Content Moderation: Challenges, Realities, and Opportunities for Kenya/Africa

Session Format: Panel Discussion

Kenya’s ICT landscape continues to shape the media environment both online and offline. While Kenya has made significant progress in advancing media freedoms, the spread of potentially harmful content such as hate speech and dis/misinformation has increasingly become an issue of concern that threatens freedom of expression, public access to information and social cohesion. In response to the increasing harmful content on their platforms and societal pressure to take action, social media companies have started to take action by complying with local laws and moderating harmful content to safeguard their users. Some of the approaches implemented include: using machine learning and artificial intelligence tools to identify content that violates their policies, working with third party fact checking organizations to identify and address mis/disinformation, engaging “trusted partners” to monitor and flag harmful content and relying users to report content that violates policies on these platforms. However, in Kenya, the extent to which laws such as the National Cohesion and Integration Act and the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act, and directives from government officials such as the NCIC, Ministry of Interior, and Ministry of ICT, impact their decisions and these approaches is not clear. This session is organized as part of the project entitled ‘Social Media 4 Peace’ aims at strengthening the resilience of society to potentially harmful content spread online, while enhancing the promotion of peace through digital technologies, notably social media platforms in Kenya.