Kenya demands social media firms to set up offices in the country

PS raymond omollo

Kenya’s Interior and National Administration Principal Secretary Raymond Omollo. 

Photo credit: Dennis Onsongo | Nation Media Group

The Kenyan government wants social media firms to establish offices within its borders as part of the measures to tame what it terms as “rising abuse” of the online platforms by users in the country.

Dr Raymond Omollo, Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Interior, on Thursday met with various representatives of telecommunications companies and social media firms and informed them of the policy change aimed at ridding online media of ‘bad’ content.

“The increasing misuse of social media, including harassment, hate speech and incitement to violence, necessitates immediate and decisive measures,” said the ministry in a statement posted on X.

“To ensure responsibility and accountability in the face of rising disinformation, social media manipulation, and online abuse, all social media organisations operating in the country must establish a physical presence within our jurisdiction.”

It added that “strict compliance with this requirement is expected”, signalling stern action against platform owners who fail to comply with the requirement to establish a physical presence in Kenya.

Apart from Google, which owns YouTube, and Microsoft, which owns LinkedIn, there are currently no other social media platform owners with a physical presence in Kenya, meaning most of the apps will be affected by the directive.

The requirement comes amid increasing use of various platforms for activism and mobilisation by the youth against corruption, punitive taxes and, most recently, enforced disappearances of government critics.

Over the past two months, for instance, comic cartoons making fun of President William Ruto, his allies and other top government officials were spread widely using WhatsApp and X.

Around the same time, many AI-generated images, some depicting bodies in coffins, also made rounds on X, Facebook and WhatsApp, leading to the abduction and later release of a number of youth suspected to have created or shared them.

This was just months after the historic Gen Z protests, which culminated in the storming of parliament, which were largely mobilised on X, TikTok, Facebook, WhatsApp and the walkie-talkie app Zello.

Facebook, WhatsApp and TikTok are the most popular apps in the country, used by 64 percent, 56 percent and 30 percent of Kenyans respectively as of last September, according to the Communications Authority of Kenya.

YouTube, Instagram, X, Telegram, LinkedIn and Snapchat are also prominent in Kenya, and usage has been growing since 2022.

Both President Ruto and his recently appointed Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen have recently warned that the freedom of speech cited by Kenyans “misusing” social media has “limits,” hinting at a crackdown on social media use.

This is not the first time the government is taking on the "big tech" industry to control disinformation. In 2022, the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) threatened to ban Facebook in the country due to its failure to effectively moderate content on its platforms in Kenya. It, however, did not follow through with the threat.

Censorship of the internet has been growing in Kenya, with a record Ksh9.7 billion ($75 million) lost to internet shutdowns last year alone, resulting from the restriction of Telegram for 21 days in November and a complete internet outage for seven hours in June during protests.