The Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) has said it will carry out an audit of those who spread hate speech through mobile phones and social media during the election period and prosecute them.
According to CCK director general Francis Wangusi, the audit is to be carried out in conjunction with all mobile network providers and will target those who used their mobile phones and social media to spread hate speech.
Wangusi added those identified as having misused their gadgets could be up for prosecution as early as this week.
This reiterates the message from the National Media Monitoring Committee warning those propagating hate speech that it would follow them even after the elections.
The commission does not expect many instances of hate speech via SMS as the operators were expected to evaluate messages before allowing them to be sent.
Among those targeted are bloggers, whom the committee said were notorious and capable of driving up temperatures in the public space.
The commission is further expected to use research from the Umati initiative, which was monitoring hate speech on social media throughout the election period.
In the November report, Umati noted that out of 792 posts on Facebook flagged by their system 78 per cent engaged in dangerous speech dialogue on public pages and groups.
The director general however lamented that some of the hate speech mongers on social media might walk free due to a number of targeted pages being hosted outside Kenya.
