Kenya’s leading integrated communications provider the Safaricom Limited has announced tough new guidelines in efforts to prevent spreading of negative campaign messages on their network even as the country approaches next year’s general elections.
The guidelines will apply to licensed content service providers who will be communicating political messages to the electorate on behalf of politicians and other organized bodies as Kenya heads to general elections.
“We are taking an early stand to ensure our mobile network, which is relied upon by over 19 million Kenyans, is not used as a platform to spread hatred or incite the populace to violence through the dissemination of hate-speech via mobile based messaging,” said Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore.
Before sending any political message especially on the Short Message Service (SMS) platform, Safaricom shall vet its content to ensure compliance with these guidelines, adding it reserves the right to refuse the transmission of a proposed political message over its network.
Safaricom said that they will only disseminate political messaged focused on party manifestos, and discarding what dwells on unnecessary attacks on individuals or tribe.
All messages must be in Kenya’s official languages; English and Kiswahili, says Safaricom.
Safaricom further said all political messages must bear the name of the political party or individual disseminating the messages and should not contain offensive, abusive or profane language.
The network operator promised to protect its subscribers from unsolicited messages by requiring content service providers to seek subscriber consent before sending out political messages.
All approved messages will only be sent between 8am and 6pm during the campaign period.
The new rules come few days after Safaricom terminated its contract with licensed Content Service Provider Datalex following allegations of fraudulent fundraising using a Safaricom short code.
The contracts of all Content Service Providers who fail to comply with the rules will be suspended.
