Fake news: much ado about nothing?

Social media is changing the political landscape in the political campaigns even as propaganda, conspiracy, bias and yellow journalism threaten to sully progress.

“What is this?” a Facebook user posted on Abraham Lincoln’s wall when photographic campaign badges were first unleashed in 1860. “Today’s youth are doomed,” the comment added. A moment later, a question was posed: “You call this news?”* Fast forward, 2017. Early this week, the tweeting president Donald Trump was at it again with his fake news lash-outs after social media went hard on him for the decision to have his daughter sit in for him during part of the G20 summit. Seemingly distressed, the American president attacked the media saying “fake news” organisations would have treated another president’s daughter differently.

“If Chelsea Clinton were asked to hold the seat for her mother, as her mother gave our country away, the Fake News would say Chelsea for pres!” the president tweeted. As the Twitter war intensified, Chelsea Clinton took her turn giving the president a piece of her mind. “Good morning Mr. President. It would never have occurred to my mother or my father to ask me. Were you giving our country away? Hoping not,” she replied. Apparently, the tweet was a response to criticism over Ivanka Trump who literally took her father’s seat among world leaders during a G20 session on Saturday as President Trump stepped away to meet with the leader of Indonesia, an incidence the White House played down.

Is this news? The 140 character social media innovation – Twitter – has over time become a political tool, not only in the West but also here in Kenya where it has been ingrained as a political reality. From the president to governor and senator hopefuls, every politician and political party has a Twitter handle and a candidate without Twitter loses their competitive edge.

In fact, candidates, their online handlers and their supporters take on each other, some spewing unthinkable insults through this free space. Media houses, individual media personalities and voters are engaging with presidential candidates in real-time back-and-forth open dialogue as never seen before. Simply put, the amount of access to politicians and interaction with them through social media is changing the political landscape in an unprecedented manner. And celebrities and Pulsers are the architects of this new shift in power.

Often downplayed by conservatives, social media trends and blogs that help drive the agenda as well as related news sites have more often been wished away as fake news. Of course, this has to do with the bias, propaganda edge and rumour touch most of them come with. However, dismissing social media as a mere alternative of news (and truth) in an age when people do not have to wait for the next newspaper or TV news to get information and react to it with online news having become a 24/7 phenomenon is ignorance. And there is more. It is not just about accessing news on the many websites at any given hour. Thousands of Kenyans are investing in sites such as Facebook and Twitter than they are doing in other news or political website. This is to mean that you can get all the trending news stories shared by other users at the touch of a button. Twitter, in particular, is an absolute powerhouse. It has been marked as a platform for opinions and reactions to others’ thoughts by use of a limited number of characters. As days go by, many Kenyans are joining Twitter, more so during this political campaigns period. A number of politicians have used it for visibility purposes so as to gain popularity. Also, Kenyan users are airing their opinions on political state out there.

There are millions of Kenyans on Twitter. In this era tweeting and parading our opinions on this platform has shaped the country in one way or the other. Being a campaign period, it is evident that politics has taken the larger portion of the issues discussed on social media. People are making decisions influenced by what they read on Twitter. Consequently, react through responses to either boost or counter the words shared by individuals who talk either good or ill of other candidates. For instance, Twitter has been used in distinctive ways, which result to certain decisions of the current political status in Kenya.

Hashtags Hashtags have been identified as the most effective way of pushing agenda on twitter. To create a topic that needs to be discussed by individuals of all walks of life, hashtags make it easier to locate the tweets and follow the conversations. Moreover, for trending purposes hashtags are used. Since political primaries kicked off in Kenya, we have frequently seen the use of hashtags to trend political topics. These topics in a number of cases have been attacking of a certain political party or candidate, shaping a certain political issue and praising and criticising political actions. For example, the hashtag like #Kivumbi2017 has been used to give Twitter users a chance to express their opinions on the political race gearing towards the August polls.

Influencers The use of influential icons to create trending topics has played a major role in swaying people to think and shape opinions in a particular way. Most users on Twitter tend to look up to the well-known influencers for opinions and the way they comment on certain political issues. For instance, the famous ‘36 government bloggers’ have been identified to do positive online discussion for the government while demeaning the activities of the opposition. This has led to an emerging political division in that we can clearly make out which bloggers will tweet content to boost particular politicians. In most cases, these influencers are hired.

Powerhouse Words are powerful when brought out in an opinion way. Opinions spark conversations most times since the particular user sharing the opinion leans on one side. The command of words can influence the way people will view a certain political issue. For instance, after the death of CS Nkaiserry Mutahi Ngunyi tweeted: “Death of Nkaissery DOES NOT ADD UP. Security Ministers DO NOT DIE 30 days to ELECTION. They are NOT ALLOWED to DIE. It is an Assassination.” Many Kenyans reacted on the tweet with some saying the death was politically induced while some commented to be due fatigue. Additionally, it influenced Kenyans’ conclusions.

Graphics The use of graphics makes political opinions more profound. Words supported with the right graphics such as emojis, pictures, gifs and memes among others may sway people to take sides. Some graphics have been used in the current political campaigns to bring out humour, correct the candidates on certain issues, degrading and praising certain political figures. Though graphics can be evidence of what the particular candidate did, some are malicious and bring out hatred that has divided users. Memes can be hilarious, or they can be dumb – but as an emerging medium, they haven’t provoked a lot of debate or analysis. In fact, they seem to defy scrutiny. However, before anyone can even take note, memes are becoming a big social threat even in the political field. Uncontrolled use of graphics has led to the divisive nature of political bloggers and other users who will defend their candidates to an extent that abuse is used.

Twitter polls The easiest way to avoid too much wording is using polls. Twitter polls run for different issues and comparisons of the candidates have boosted the confidence of some candidates that they will probably win the seat contested. The twitter account, Daily Polls, has been running daily polls on presidential candidates especially Raila Odinga and Uhuru Kenyatta. After speaking to a number of youths who are excited to vote for the first time, it is evident that some have made decisions of who they will vote for come August due to the polls that have been frequently conducted. Political twitter polls are currently an important part of the ongoing campaigns. The digital space has greatly increased the number of poll results we see each day with twitter accelerating this even more. Even if some of these are flawed, like they are sometimes, the results have a big influence on elections.