After Kenya shut down its economy to battle the coronavirus pandemic, its comedians took to social media to entertain the public with stories of their journeys to stardom. Their tales tended to follow a rags-to-riches narrative: They left rural homes and moved to a big city to try their hand at an acting career. They […]
“Affordable Housing: Why the government’s housing policy is failing in Nairobi.” Read More »
The viral circulation of false information online in Kenya – and in much of Africa – often mimics the oral manner in which rumours and gossip travelled the village grapevine. With WhatsApp, people are likely to be in groups with their friends and relatives, or to message people they personally know and trust. The assumptions embedded in
“What we learnt fact-checking the Covid-19 infodemic on WhatsApp in Kenya” Read More »
In the final week of May 2020, Kenya’s mainstream media suffered an avalanche of fake newspaper front pages. All the fake headlines targeted politicians. These were saved as images and circulated online on social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook and Telegram. The design work on these false headlines was near-expert quality. The text
“Why return of fake front pages should worry us” Read More »
In October, two fake gazette notices surfaced on Facebook, Twitter, Whats App and other social media platforms used in Kenya. The fake documents claimed the Cabinet Secretary for Interior Fred Matiang’i had declared public holidays. The first “public holiday” was October 14 to celebrate Eliud Kipchoge’s record-breaking feat in running a marathon in under two
“Media has a duty to flag fake news online” Read More »
In Africa, a wide variety of false information is being disseminated online. Sometimes that is done inadvertently, but far too often deliberately. Perpetrators are pursuing financial, ideological, political and other interests. The harmful impacts are real (see box). They include loss of money, destroyed reputations and social upheaval. When misinformation stokes religious or tribal hatred,
“’Fake News’ on The Internet: ‘A multi-tentacular problem’ Read More »
In Kenya, the fissures in society between rich and poor are nowhere more visible than in the system for educating the country’s children and teenagers. The gap is obvious in the mundane daily trip to school. In Nairobi, the children of the poor trudge a long way to hopelessly overcrowded and ill-equipped public schools. They
Dissatisfaction with ‘free’ public education”. Read More »