Winning the war on fake news will involve all Kenyans of goodwill

A few years ago, Kenyans started seeing local bloggers appearing in court to answer for hateful words posted on online platforms. This was a new phenomenon in a country seemingly getting comfortable with irresponsible statements online, with no consequences. The proliferation of hate speech and public incitement on social media platforms during the 2013 election rightly necessitated a corresponding shift in law enforcement. But with the rising government crackdown on controversial bloggers, a topic that quickly took centre stage in public debates was: “What constitutes unwarranted censorship and what exactly, according to the laws of Kenya, are the limits of free speech?”

Today, many of the bloggers have toned down on personal attacks and resorted to more nuanced ways of dividing the nation -- Fake News. The challenge for both public and private corporations has been how to deal with propaganda and misinformation that is now the cancer online.