For clean-shaven and soft-spoken Raymond Omollo, his assignment to safeguard the country’s security interests transcends to the internet.
The Principal Secretary in the powerful Interior ministry has trained his guns on the blogosphere and social media sites with threats of sanctions amid the government’s growing discomfort with what it termed “rising abuse” of online platforms.
“The increasing misuse of social media, including harassment, hate speech and incitement to violence and decisive measures,” Dr Omollo said in a statement posted on the Interior Ministry’s 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 in Kenya,” he added.
As it has become their fashion, netizens responded to the government’s plans to force major social media sites to have an office in Kenya with their now trademark weapon: caricatures.
One of these caricatures stood out for its powerful symbolism, as it captured both the herculean task of policing the blogosphere and the dreadful face-off with the world’s most powerful nation: the United States of America.
The unique caricature was one of an imposing elephant facing off with a puny and visibly timid mouse. The elephant was social media—Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The puny, timid mouse was Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for the Interior Ministry Kipchumba Murkomen.
Dr Omollo, a statistician by training, will certainly have to summon skills beyond his forte — playing with numbers — if he were to win his newly opened war with netizens and social media firms.
Although it is not easy to predict how the geopolitical drama of the latest provocation by Nairobi will unfold, the incoming US President Donald Trump, who intends to 'Make America Great Again', will stand by American tech giants that own these social media platforms.
Since June last year, after the end of the anti-tax protests by the youthful Gen Zs, the protests have gone online with the government finding itself flat-footed in a fiery digital warfare.
Amid the critical social media content, some of the youths have been abducted, with critics condemning what they insist is an affront to civil liberties including the freedom of speech.
Consequently, after a short notice meeting some representatives of social media platforms in the country, said it would require them to have a physical presence in a bid to clamp down on hate speech.
However, the fact that the ministry would later revise the statement from requiring compulsory physical presence to “enhancing the physical presence of key operators” is a sign that the government is treading on murky waters.
“There is nothing under the current law that gives them (the government) reason to give such a demand,” said Ben Roberts, the chair of the ICT Sector Board at the Kenya Private Sector Alliance and the former chief executive officer of Liquid Technologies.
Although Kenyans have subscribed to several social media platforms, only Google, which owns the music streaming platform YouTube, and Microsoft, which owns LinkedIn, have a local presence.
Even if the Kenyan law allowed for such a demand, analysts reckon that the power dynamics between Kenya and the US would not.
Most of the social media sites targeted by the government are owned by American-based tech giants.
These social media sites include X, formerly known as Twitter, which is owned by the world’s richest person Elon Musk.
Musk, a fierce advocate of free speech, is a key ally of the incoming President Trump, having played a critical role in his return to the White House.
There are reports that the target for this directive is X. The Majority of this content is taking place on X. “X has no presence in Africa, let alone Kenya,” said a source who did not want to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.
When Musk took over Twitter, which he changed to X, he shut down the only African office in Ghana as part of his restructuring.
Then there is Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram. Meta’s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has pushed himself under Trump’s wing and shifted Meta’s content moderation policies, by replacing centralised fact-checking teams with user-generated community labelling.
Moreover, Kenya is in the middle of a trade deal with the US, which hinges on Kenya upholding human rights, including free speech.
The African Growth Opportunity Act (Agoa), another trade deal, is also set for expiry this year, with President William Ruto Keen on having it renewed for its produce, especially textiles, to access the US market duty-free.
When the outgoing US President Joe Biden dispatched Uzra Zeya, the US Under Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy and Human Rights, for a five-day visit to Kenya and Ethiopia in August last year, there were a lot of talks on human rights, democratic governance and humanitarian cooperation.
In Kenya, Ms Zeya met senior government officials, civil society representatives, and US exchange alumni.
“In addition to addressing shared solutions to regional and global challenges, she (Zeya) will underscore the importance of freedoms of peaceful assembly and expression, as well as US support for democratic reforms and refugee inclusion,” read a statement.
The President might be consoled by the fact the Republican Party, and particularly Mr Trump, is not interested in being the moral police of the world.
Mercy Mutemi, an advocate of the High Court who specialises in ICT and data protection, says that the government’s requirement for social media platforms to have a physical presence in Kenya, is a continuation of a policy stance that might have resulted in the current problem.
A physical local office for social media platforms is not only a boon for a government hungry for jobs to the millions of its unemployed youths, it also enables them to limit free speech by issuing threats to these firms.
“The government wants to cozy up to social media so that they can pump jobs into the economy. But the government is not asking: ‘Which are these jobs that are being pumped into the economy,” wondered Mutemi.
One country that has insisted on social media platforms having a physical presence is India. “But they have used that to bully social media platforms and take down content, even if it is a democratic expression,” said Ms Mutemi.