Social media misinformation, disinformation bite as Kenyans await election results

The nation's 22,120,458 registered voters went to the polls on Tuesday to elect 290 Members of the National Assembly, 1,450 Members of County Assembly, 47 senators, governors and woman representatives, as well as President Uhuru Kenyatta’s successor.

But as the official results from the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) are being announced since late Wednesday, the period from Tuesday has been characterised by a lot of misinformation online.

The East African Community (EAC) Election Observer Mission on Thursday pointed out disinformation, misinformation and hate speech on social media as some of the major challenges recorded during the election period.

Such cases as claims of vote rigging, election wins and losses, voter results purported to be from the diaspora, as well as confusion surrounding the airing of dissimilar presidential results across local TV stations have all been witnessed.

Twitter and Facebook are some of the social media platforms where misinformation has been flying around. 

On election day, there were multiple reports on Kenyan Twitter circles alleging voting at the Kenyan Embassy in Australia. The reports further displayed the purported results of presidential candidates. 

IEBC however came out to clarify that it was only conducting diaspora voting in 12 countries: Burundi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Canada, the United States of America, South Sudan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Germany.

On poll results, for instance, fake reports started making rounds on Wednesday night regarding the outcome of the Lang’ata parliamentary race. 

Comedian Felix Odiwor, alias Jalang’o, who was contesting for the seat was the subject of ridicule and viral memes for reports that he had lost the bid to his main rival, the incumbent MP Nixon Korir.

He would later be officially announced by IEBC as the MP-elect.

The same applies to the Dagoretti South parliamentary race. Reports doing the rounds on social media Thursday morning, some from mainstream media, stated that Jubilee Party candidate Dennis Waweru had won.

However, IEBC later in the day confirmed that John ‘KJ’ Kiarie, the incumbent legislator in the constituency, had won.

In the presidential races, Twitter ‘bigwigs’ allied to Azimio La Umoja One Kenya contender Raila Odinga and Kenya Kwanza Alliance flag-bearer William Ruto were sharing results they claimed were the final tallying figures.

Even so, the social media platform's fact-checking feature that flags off information on the Kenyan General Election deemed as potentially misleading has been on overdrive since the tallying and counting of votes started.

Several Twitter users allied to the Azimio La Umoja One Kenya coalition party and the Kenya Kwanza Alliance who were sharing presidential results they claimed were the final tallying figures saw their tweets flagged.

Some of the notable accounts that had their tweets flagged were Azimio leader Raila Odinga’s presidential running mate Martha Karua, ODM party Secretary-General and Nairobi senatorial candidate Edwin Sifuna, blogger Dennis Itumbi, as well as lawyers Ahmednasir Abdullahi and Dr. Miguna Miguna.

Facebook’s parent company, Meta, last month set up an Elections Operation Centre to help curb fake news and misinformation on its platforms; Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

The company said that for the last year, it has been working closely with Kenyan authorities and partners to curb fake news by enlisting experts from Kenya and people who have spent a significant amount of time in the country.

The team, Meta added, would identify and remove content on its platforms that violates its Community standards by use of artificial intelligence, human review and user reports.

However, a cross-check by Citizen Digital on Friday morning established that the same posts flagged on Twitter had not been flagged or taken down on Facebook.

This is the first General Election where media houses, politicians, members of the public and other interested parties have been allowed to independently keep track of the election results by sourcing data from IEBC.

But amid the parallel tallies have been concerns raised by members of the public, with some suggesting that the press is not keying in the correct tally results.

Media Council of Kenya (MCK) CEO David Omwoyo has since come out to set the record straight that it is only natural for different TV stations to display contrasting results since the sequencing of votes can vary depending on how the said stations receive results from different parts of the country.

Official presidential election results will, however, only be announced by IEBC once tallying is concluded.

By Monday, the electoral body is expected to have announced the results for all the various seats per the law, which gives it seven days to tally and announce the results.