The digital age has brought forth immense opportunities for the empowerment of women and girls in Kenya, from online learning to digital activism and high-paying tech jobs. However, technology is also introducing new forms of inequality and threats to their rights and well-being. Women and girls are underrepresented across the creation, use and regulation of technology, limiting their digital empowerment and the transformative potential of technology. 

With 3.6 billion monthly users by 2022, social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp (all owned by Meta), Twitter, Tik Tok, YouTube, WeChat, and Snapchat will continue to grow. In the last 15 years, they have revolutionised how people interact, communicate, and share information and news.

Instagram, TikTok and other social media have become daily fixtures in the lives of children and young people around the world, with 59% of young people surveyed by Amnesty International now spending more than two hours of their average day on social media. Yet research on young people’s experiences on social media remains overwhelmingly focused on North America, Europe and Australia.

06th February, 2023

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Kenya ranks high in Africa in digital technology, digital infrastructure and the use of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning.

There has been an explosion of misinformation, disinformation and hate speech on Kenyan social media over the past two weeks coming from politicians, bloggers, supporters, and others who have blatantly misrepresented how they are doing, how their opponents are allegedly acting, and how the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) was conducting the elections. To inform users of the potential for misinformation, Twitter flagged false information sources with a disclaimer.

With elections related malicious content spiking on social media and a new Council for Responsible Social Media launched this week, perhaps its time to revisit what social media platforms, digital citizens and the algorithms are doing online.