The Society Might Seem In Order But Anarchy On Social Media May Brew Anarchy In The Real World

During and after Kenya’s March 2013 historic elections, the social media has been buzzing with insults; hurled by some supporters of mainly the Coalition for Reform and Democracy (CORD) and their Jubilee counterparts.

With regard to this, supporters from the two sides literally have a field day, every day. I mean, they get to do whatever they so please without fear of being wrong or wish to be right. In some of these pro CORD and Jubilee pages on mainly Facebook, we who frequent those sites get to see all dimensions of negative ethnicity, coupled with puerile commentaries on the state of affairs in politics. These points to disorder in the Kenyan society.

NCIC tenets have hinted that hate speech brewed in the electronic media may incite hate crimes. I lament with great concern that no substantial actions have been taken by NCIC to fight the quickly budding disorder in our social media sites, despite having afore mentioned tenets.

In 2010, NCIC produced a document titled ‘guidelines for monitoring hate speech in electronic media…’ The document highlighted the raging debate about the role of the media in fuelling the 2008 post election violence. The document also described the media as an opinion shaper, with regard to elections. Since social sites are part of the electronic media, can they also shape opinion and incite, for instance, hate crimes? Yes! I believe they can. Social media has been effective in mobilizing crowds for demonstrations: c.f. Egyptian, Tunisian uprisings and our very own May 14^th #OccupyParliament demonstrations against MP salary hike. If so, how hard can it be to incite people into hate crimes and related wrongs!?

Having said that, it is crucial that NCIC and relevant authorities act on sods responsible for fuelling negative ethnicity on social media. If not, then the Kenyan nation should prepare for anarchy for it is inevitable. The spirit of nationhood is dying, and at a weirdly fast rate. There is complete lack of respect for authorities like the police, the president and even statesmen like Raila Odinga. Our constitution gives us the freedom of speech; every Kenyan is free to speak his/her mind but there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed. It’s about time someone did something to put us on the right path; a path to order, social responsibility and respect

This applies to politicos too; putting Kenya on a path to social responsibility shouldn't be an excuse to limit freedoms in the name of national security, etc because that would essentially mean politicos refusal to take responsibility and that is a prelude to authoritarianism akin to fascism