Kenya Policies Affecting Disinformation
Legislations and Policies
According to Disinformation Tracker, the Kenyan Penal Code, criminalizes the publication of false statements, rumors or reports which are likely to cause fear and alarm to the public or to disturb the public peace.[1]
In 2017, the Communications Authority of Kenya issued guidelines which made it the responsibility of mobile network operators and mobile virtual network operators to assess political messages they transmit and require political content authors to verify that what they publish is accurate. Additionally the body directed social media platform administrators to control undesirable content and social media service providers to take down accounts used in the dissemination of undesirable political content. [2]
The 2018 Computer and Cybercrimes bill criminalized online disinformation.[3] Under the law, it is prohibited for someone to “intentionally publish[es] false, misleading or fictitious data or misinform[s] with intent that the data shall be considered or acted upon as authentic”. They can be fined up to 5,000,000 shillings or be imprisoned for up to two years.[4]
Arrests Based on Legislation
In 2020 two people have been arrested under the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act.[5]
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