I know you take me to be a very
pessimistic person due to that heading, a doomsayer in that matter for trying to argue out why
social media could take this country back to 2007 PEV. FYI I love this country very much and peace is one of the things I
pray for daily for this nation. A as a patriot I also think about things that
could rob me off the peace, security, and all the good things that come with a
stable society.
Well, social media is one of the most powerful things that Kenyans
currently have, can be used for good and bad! According to Social Bakers, we
have around 2M Facebook users comprising of 64% male and 36 % female users,
another survey ranked Kenya as the second most tweeting nation in Africa coming
second to SA. In the past we have seen KOT (Kenyans on Twitter) come together
for various good reasons, when we had the matatu strike our love for one
another and creativity led to #CarpoolKE. Earlier on when MP’s want to hike
their severance pay Robert Alai came up with #KOTagainstMpbonus and again we
joined the movement which led to an actual public demo and a march to
parliament. (We won) When doctors
went on strike, #PeremendeMovement came in handy to help them air out their
grievances and highlight the sad state in the health sector. (They won). Earlier on we had
#KenyansForKenya, #KOT4Conje among other great initiatives on social media
meant for the good of the society.
However
this week we have been treated to drama and a sad unfolding turn of events on
social media after Caroline Mutoko posted something that didn’t augur well with
her fans. Pages have been created by social media users who want to play the
HEROES trying to save the girl who posted on her wall. This whole saga shows
how Kenyans can be intolerant of another person’s opinions, rules and thoughts.
For crying out loud, it’s her page so she deserves the right to express how she
wants it managed and why would she want to tackle issues about Safaricom yet
they have a page and a strong social media team that handles inquiries 18 hours
a day? Are Kenyan youths that idle as Caroline Mutoko put it? Yes we could
since one of those pages against Mutoko has around 30,000 likes as I write
this. Why would one want to join such a community? What content do you find
useful and valuable on such a page? The admin/s of those must be feeling really
nice having attracted such a big audience in a short time as they play the
heroes! Such people definitely can put their skills and time into better use as
companies are in dire need of human resource that can help them manage and
monitor their brands on new media as well as engage their communities across
social networking platforms. We all have different objectives on social media;
we create and share a variety of content as we engage, respond to and interact
with other social media users. I am not trying to lay out rules on what one
should do on social media, however as we engage and interact on these platforms
let us remember to be ethical and responsible as the content we create and
share affects others in one way or another.
As we
approach the March 2013 social media will play a big role in the general
elections, as it might be misused by politicians or people with selfish
interests and agenda to incite Kenyans and spread propaganda. We’ve witnessed
Twitter handles that called for killing of Christians in the riots in Mombasa
and with anonymity that comes with social media, tracking such fellows may be
difficult or take time to arrest, prosecute and punish but I believe this
shouldn’t be the approach we should take with such content creators and social
media users in the elections period. We have to be more proactive and avert
possible disaster before it happens.
I came up
with three possible scenarios that could happen in 2013; forgive me of you find
this very pessimistic,
PRE ELECTIONS
Currently
we are in the pre-elections phase, we are currently discussing alliances,
coalition partners, presidential candidates, the implications of bad leadership
and all that on social media. As at now people haven’t really taken stands and
made them clear however we tweet on how we need good leaders, better roads,
less corruptions as we urge one another to go register as voters. Good! Blogs
aren’t that hard hitting however tribal posts on social media are on the rise
as people seek to ‘push and sell’ their ideal candidates. Come January, we
should have an opinion poll which will arouse serious heat on social media.
Here pages come up “Stop Uhuru Kenyatta”,
“1Million Kenyans against ICC suspects”
“Hatutaki Vitendawili, STOP RAILA”
are some of the pages I foresee! We’ll see radicals coming up and fake social
media accounts will increase. As these pages Kenyans of good faith will form
“1M Kenyans against STOP UHURU KENYATTA Page” et’;al and we shall discuss this for a
while, ask people not to like such tribal pages and their numbers will increase
due to the massive PR we give them, arouse more talkability around such
communities resulting to more virality and thus inform more people who in turn
end up joining these pages! Do you remember Campus Divas for rich men? How do
you think such pages attract 15,000 likes in hours? Because we all talk about
them as we urge others not to join! Brace yourself for that next year! Around
end of February, we shall see more ‘tabloids’ that report plans to rig
elections, see images of rallies and gatherings that turned violent and with
the rise of social TV where we discuss all we consume on mainstream media
social media at this point will be heated up.
DURING THE ELECTIONS
This
is the day of election, what’s likely to happen here? We’ll all be somewhere,
seeing how Kenyans are voting; right? We’ll witness cases of voter bribery
first hand, take photos and SHARE on social media. If there’s any violence
anywhere, photos will be shared and we’ll pick up on them Retweet them, Share,
comment and basically pass them on. With the BVR kits we expect some people to
come vote only to be told ‘they voted’, others may miss from the system among
other things. Party agents, IEBC clerks and voters will be able to broadcast
whatever is happening on the ground as it happens for others to pick up on it.
The media too will be on the ground to fill us up on what’s happening
elsewhere. God forbid we shouldn’t witness cases of violence in parts of the
country as that will send fear country wide. If people of community A in region
B see their tribesmen in region C being attacked by people of Community B then
that could spark retaliatory attacks! The danger here is we shall be getting
this information live as it happens through social media and pass it on to our
communities (friends, followers) on
social media instantly! Here we’ll also turn to SMS to communicate with our
friends and assure them of our safety as we inform them of the latest on our
end, calls too will be made and TV & radio will broadcast the rest. No much
will happen here, however should there be some violence, missing names on IEBC
list, bribery, some plans to rig elections and all that plans will be made
here!
POST ELECTION
Am
thinking IEBC will be tallying votes electronically so we shall know how who is
leading where as votes come in. However due to social media and ‘people on the
ground’ that information will be broadcasted in real time as counting begins.
Remember all these are preliminary results and not verified, however if there’s
too much disparity from the expected outcome then Kenyans will turn to social
media to vent out and analyse possible causes of that disparity! We shall also
witness people saying tribe A betrayed alliance B and thus led to outcome C
which may also cause issues that could destabilize the nation. I am sure you are
asking how all this leads to war, the power of social media could lead to this,
supported by SMS messages, calls, word of mouth and the media. In 2007 the
smses fueled the PEV however next year this could be worse as we are talking
about a medium that isn’t controlled, forces ill equipped to monitor and track
conversations and most dangerous being the YOU and ME who will create, share or
transmit unverified, false, content full of hate and propaganda on social
media. That is how we can easily get back to 07/08! If 0.5M active Facebook
users consume hate content, false and unverified data or information and then
pass it on via sms and word of mouth to three people who do the same to another
3 then that could be dangerous!
THE SOLUTION TO THAT IS
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