The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) has given Facebook one-week ultimatum to comply with hate speech prevention guidelines or risk being suspended in the country.
NCIC issued the notice following a report released by Global Witness – an international Non-Governmental Organization (NGO).
The report revealed Facebook failed to regulate hate speech content in Kenya ahead of the August polls.
“From the report, it is very clear that Facebook is in violation of the laws of our country. They have allowed themselves to be a vector of hate speech and incitement, misinformation, and disinformation,” NCIC Commissioner Danvas Makori said.
The Global Witness report further raised serious concerns that the Mike Zuckerberg social platform failed to do in detecting hate speech content.
Meanwhile, NCIC has notified the Communication Authority (CA) to act if Facebook fails to comply.
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Likewise, the Commission and the leadership of Facebook met in Nairobi on April 2022.
During the meeting, they arrived at the resolution that Facebook would step up its efforts to moderate and regulate the content posted on its platform, especially the ones that border on election matters.
“It is clear that their pursuit for profit supersedes their responsibility as far as peace and security is concerned in our country,” stated Makori.
Similarly, Makori noted Facebook’s reluctance to spearhead peace messages ahead of the general elections. Saying they only allow hate speech and incitement on their platform.
He further regretted that the platform was biased in regulating hate speech content in Africa.
“The hate speech moderation in the USA and Europe is very robust. There is a double standard to their moderation and self-policing,” he added
Nonetheless, there are already 81 social media users’ in court facing hate speech charges, out of which a majority are bloggers.
Furthermore, the Global Witness report has asked Facebook to urgently increase their content moderation capabilities and integrity systems deployed to mitigate risk before, during, and after the upcoming election.
