HomeBy Wahome Ngatia
Mozilla Fellow Odanga Madung uncovered the disinformation by a Spain-based CitizenGO through Twitter attacking the health policy in Kenya. The research uncovered that the organization manipulated Twitter conversations by pushing 10 hashtags into Twitter’s trending section in Kenya.
The aim of the propaganda is to spread disinformation about Kenya’s health bills that cover reproductive healthcare and surrogacy. Nairobi-based Odanga Madung used Twitter’s Firehose to uncover that 20,811 tweets and 11 campaigns were most likely pushed by CitizenGO. Ten of them were featured on Twitter’s trending section.
The bills in question, the 2020 Reproductive Healthcare Bill and the 2021 Surrogacy Bill, outlaw forced sterilizations; make prenatal, delivery and postnatal services free to every woman in the country; and develop standards, regulations and guidelines on assisted reproduction.
It underscores how important civil education and raising awareness about such issues is. Kenyan-based NGOs whose work ranges in reproductive health, sex education and maternal health should take the fight to the online front and counter misinformation.
Though Twitter was seen as a naïve accomplice, when they were presented with the evidence by Madung, they suspended 240 of these accounts. They deemed them a violation of their Terms of Service.
A lot of resources need to be invested because the peddlers of this misleading information are paying off “keyboard warriors”. Madung discovered that these Twitter users who were spreading the information had received instructions from CitizenGO to make certain topics and opinions trend. The users told Madung that the Spain-based, right-wing organization had also given them content over WhatsApp.
As much as organizations are concentrating on availing safe reproductive health services to Kenyans, the broader war should not be ignored. At the base of it, the ones who will suffer are the women who need these services desperately.
Organizations such as PLAN International, Planned Parenthood, Marie Stopes and many others should come up with information strategies that integrate technology and social media platforms. At the same time, the education offered should be simple to understand so as to appeal to the general public.
These organizations should use every available outlet to give the right information and highlight the benefits of good reproductive health and protecting both the mother and the child.
In that same breath, wide consultations with the government, the ministry of health and public institutions should start. The government should partner with donors and well-wishers to educate its citizens. Through the authority that they wield, they should investigate these foreign institutions and ban them from operating in the country if they are found to be violating sovereign law.
