Kenya tracks Facebook, Twitter for election ‘hate speech’

NAIROBI: Every day, Kagonya Awori and her tech-savvy team trawl through Facebook and Twitter for warning signs that Kenya's elections in March may unleash the same ethnic violence that took the country to the brink of civil war five years ago.

Sifting through blogs and social media sites, the group of six search for hate speech and inflammatory postings - or any early indications that inter-tribal tensions are escalating.

Awori and her colleagues have reason to be worried.

The last presidential vote in late 2007 when incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was declared the re-elected victor was disputed by opponents and erupted into bloodletting.

More than 1,200 people were slaughtered, many butchered by machete, burnt alive or shot with bows and arrows as the country's biggest tribes turned on one another.

"The amount of dangerous speech is going up but, this time, the people who are saying these things are not hiding at all," said Awori. She heads Umati, a web-based project monitoring dangerous speech for research firm iHub Research, which conducts Africa-focused tech research out of Nairobi.

"There are outright calls to kill, forcefully evict and steal as well as discriminate against members of particular communities," she said.

US President Barack Obama pressed for free and fair elections in Kenya, urging any disputes be resolved in the courts and not violently on the streets.

"This is a moment for the people of Kenya to come together, instead of tearing apart," Obama said in a video statement.

Most of the hate speech Awori's group has come across so far has been on Facebook, with users frequently revealing their names, and often their location.

Kenya, East Africa's biggest economy, has ranked second for Twitter use in Africa in recent years, out-tweeting oil-producing powerhouse Nigeria and Egypt, where social media helped galvanise supporters of the Arab Spring revolution.

Kenyan authorities have passed legislation banning media outlets from re-printing hate speech, to curb the spread. But thus far they have been largely powerless to stop ordinary Kenyans from voicing tribal animosities on social media.

Kenyan law prohibits media from re-printing tribal hate speech in full.

Examples of online vitriol include calls to "chinja chinja", or "butcher butcher" in Swahili, as well as to beat, loot, riot, kill, and drive out other tribes.

A repeat in March of the inter-tribal violence that bloodied the 2007 elections cannot be ruled out.

Alliances forged by Kenya's main presidential contenders for the 2013 vote are lining up for a rerun of a largely ethnic-based contest for political power.

The two main opposing camps are headed by Prime Minister Raila Odinga, who is backed by Vice President Kalonzo Musyoka, and Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta whose running mate is William Ruto, a former cabinet minister.

The head-on rivalry between Kenyatta, son of Kenya's founder president and from the predominant Kikuyu tribe, and Odinga, a Luo, raises the spectre again of ethnic confrontation.

Contributing to the tensions, both Kenyatta and Ruto face trial after the March vote at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague for their alleged role in fomenting the election violence five years ago.