Close to 300 cases affiliated with misuse of Social Media reported in Kenya

Between August to date, close to 300 cases affiliated with misuse of Social Media have since been reported to Communications Authority of Kenya (CA).

According to Engineer Francis Wangusi, Director General, Communications Authority of Kenya (CA),  during a press briefing held at the CA Headquarters, several websites have been brought down by the authority owing to issues that border on incitement, impersonation and hate speech.

“We have dealt with over 300 cases of Social Media Incitement and have brought a number of people to book though most of these cases are now under National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) and we cannot comment much on the same. We have also brought down a number of sites that have been impersonating media houses, politicians and high-profile people,” said Wangusi.

Earlier this year, CA invested Ksh 600 million in a 24 hours social media monitoring system. The monitoring system was meant to monitor and gather evidence of wrongdoers and Internet users during the electioneering period.

Wangusi said that the system might not be able to bring down all the reported sites at the same time because of its limited capacity and the viral nature of the Social Media. He however, called on Kenyans to also report any cases of social media misuse to the Authority.

On the issue around the NASA boycott, Eng. Wangusi pointed out that so far there was not much impact felt around the same. “The choice of which service one wants to use, is the more reason why we have provided more service providers. We haven’t accessed much of the impact because this is not so much of a worry to us. The only worry is when the infrastructure that is supposed to offer such a service is destroyed,” he concluded.