Digital Threat Digest - 13 September 2022
PGI’s Digital Investigations Team brings you the Digital Threat Digest, SOCMINT and OSINT insights into disinformation, influence operations, and online harms.
Can information environments change for the better?
I interrupt our usual doom and gloom to discuss a potential positive development of an information environment (shocking I know). Kenya recently had its fifth presidential election in August which, in comparison to previous years, went very smoothly.
The lead up to the election period was met with a lot of skepticism as previous elections saw thousands killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in election cycles since 2007. Elections in Kenya are founded on inter-ethnic alliances and, in turn, tribal identities and a manipulation of ethnic grievances. As such, social media has historically been used to spread hate speech targeting different ethnic groups as well as being used to incite violence off-platform. During the 2017 elections, former President Kenyatta’s campaign was found to have employed Cambridge Analytica which assisted creating and spreading manipulated content supporting Kenyatta on social media platforms. In turn, social media companies were facing a lot of pressure to ensure their platforms were not perpetuating ethnic-based tensions in the lead up to the 2022 election.
While violative content, such as the use of known hate speech terms, manipulated or misattributed footage, was found – there was an awareness of these threats beforehand. The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) released a list of lexicon words it classified as hate speech or bordering incitement to violence; many of which have been used during election periods to provoke tensions. These safeguards alongside an uptick in factchecking sites flagging manipulated content led to an overall decrease of violative material.
Again, the information environment was not completely clear from manipulated content, but the awareness of the potential of such content making its way to social media and the exploitation of ethnic grievances meant that users were prepared and had built up some resilience. Perhaps the 2022 elections in Kenya can act as an example for correcting or reshaping information environments and while it took several elections, and several instances of violence, this election saw several mechanisms put in place to ensure a safer election. Social media companies, the NCIC, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC), as well as several factchecking organisations all worked to ensure there was an awareness of possible digital threats.
The ideal would be to ensure these partnerships and mechanisms are in place for all high-risk elections, without the history of violence needed to ensure such safeguards. Importantly, people need to know and be aware of how social media can be used to manipulate grievances in order to build resilience. Kenya still has a long way to go but this election points to the possibility of a reforming information environment.
More about Protection Group International's Digital Investigations
PGI’s Social Media Intelligence Analysts combine modern exploitative technology with deep human analytical expertise that covers the social media platforms themselves and the behaviours and the intents of those who use them. Our experienced analyst team have a deep understanding of how various threat groups use social media and follow a three-pronged approach focused on content, behaviour and infrastructure to assess and substantiate threat landscapes.
Disclaimer: Protection Group International does not endorse any of the linked content.