The 2017 general election is now behind us, and we are still asking ourselves questions and processing how it went. This week, we are joined by Mark Kaigwa of Nendo and Odanga Madung of OdipoDev to discuss how the election season played out online. How many Kenyans are there on social media? How does the diaspora feature in conversation? Is fake news new to the Kenyan scene? What role did Cambridge Analytica play in this election? What can we learn from the April Primaries? Were there any missed opportunities in the vice-presidential and presidential debates? What did a robot learn when it watched Raila Odinga’s debate performance? How did online media drive conversation before the election? How did the election play out on social media? Who is #GitheriMan? What is Sarahah, and why is it suddenly so popular? Now that the election is over, where are we now, and what can we expect moving forward? Press play to find out!

Resources

Track, Capture, Kill: Inside Communications Surveillance and Counterterrorism in Kenya

Kenyatta Wins Big in Kenya–But U.S.-Style Election Skullduggery Taints the Results

Voter profiling in the 2017 Kenyan election

Kenya’s elections show how the media has sold its soul

Trump’s Big-Data Gurus Worked On The Kenyan Election, Amid Concerns Over Fake News And Hacking Allegations

3 Things We Discovered From 3 Months of Investigating Fake News in Kenya

A Robot Watched Raila’s Debate Performance, Here’s What It Found

Mark’s Thread on #GitheriMan

Mark’s Thread on Sarahah

Photo credit: Ian Kinuthia