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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 […]

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