Kenyan government to hand over more bloggers to NCIC

The bloggers on the list will be publicly named so as to continue the vigilance on matters of hate speech in order to protect national cohesion, said committee chairperson Mary Ombara at a media briefing.

HumanIPO reported last week nine bloggers were put under investigation for alleged hate speech, with the NSCMM promising a further crackdown as it looks to accelerate a decline in hate speech online, with the committee saying incidents decreased by 70 per cent between May 28 and May 31.

The committee is linking the decline to the investigations, which has seen seven of the bloggers deleting the offending posts.

“This trend in social media could however be reversed due to the emerging and renewed political tension in the country in the last week,” warned Ombara.

Radio stations have also been faulted for the content they aired in the same period, with Ombara citing accommodation of lewd topics and presenters failing to guide callers.

Additionally, young audiences are getting a raw deal from the persistent violation of watershed hours and repetitiveness of adult content.

“Professional broadcast content must always be subject to prior serious own-editorial discussion on the basis of diversity, suitability and impact before airing. Without these professional parameters, Kenyan radio risks degenerating to a mere entertaining and sexual tabloid,” she said.

Ombara called upon Kenyans to demand from the Media Council of Kenya (MCK) and the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK) improved broadcast programming and quality of content, and also advised although Kenyan audience response to issues of relationships and sex is massive and positive, they should be handled within professional psychiatric context to adequately meet their aspirations and needs.

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