Weeks after the Tanzanian general elections on October 29, 2025, reports about the scale and severity of the crackdown on protesters are still trickling out of the country. In the immediate aftermath, graphic images and videos of victims of brutality were posted and shared online, even as incumbent president Samia Suluhu was announced the winner in the presidential election, and the ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) maintained a majority in parliament.
Despite government claims that the elections were free and fair, opposition politicians and activists were jailed in the months leading up to the polls. When youths from all over the country went to protest what they called a repressive regime, they were met with deadly force.
The Narratives
President Samia’s administration went further and blocked internet access during and after the elections. In addition to curtailing the spread of information within and outside Tanzania, X (formerly Twitter) has become the playground for an elaborate disinformation campaign, seemingly bankrolled by the Tanzanian state, to target truth-tellers and counter any narratives that contradict the state’s.
In this article, we document evidence of a coordinated social media disinformation campaign carried out by accounts based in Tanzania and abroad. The campaigns are managed centrally, and the accounts involved share similar, highly edited images and videos.
A timeline of over 30 hashtags and keywords used in disinformation campaigns targeting Tanzanian activists and civil society.
Between November 20, 2025, and December 5, 2025, we counted up to 30 different hashtags and keywords with similar narratives. They all accused protesters of the deadly violence and called any reporting of the killings fake or ‘foreign-funded’, therefore absolving the police of murdering Tanzanians.
CNN is ‘Fake News’
On November 21, 2025, CNN published a detailed forensic investigation into killings conducted by the Tanzanian police during and after the October 29, 2025, general elections. “Videos verified by CNN also support witness reports about the deadly toll of the post-election crackdown, showing morgues overflowing with scores of bodies,” the report reads. In the days following the disturbing report, at least seven hashtags targeting CNN and its international reporter, Larry Madowo, were trending on X.
#RejectCNNLies, #CNNFalseNarrative, #FactsOnTanzania, #TruthOverPropaganda, #LarrythePuppet, Larry Mauongo and #LiesCNNTell, were trending between November 21, 2025, and November 25, 2025. All these hashtags were an attempt to change the narrative from accountability and justice to personal attacks on CNN and Larry Madowo.
One of the hashtags, #RejectCNNLies was first posted on X on November 23, 2025, at 7:45 am by an account username @_zack255. “If your activism starts with lies and ends with destruction, we’re not buying it. #RejectCNNLies,” the post reads, accompanied by a professionally edited graphic with the words #RejectCommercialActivism.
The graphic repeatedly shared alongside the hashtag on several posts here, and here seems to claim that it was taken in Tanzania during the protests. The image in the graphic, however, is misleading as it was taken in Uganda in 2020 during an accidental fire.
In addition to the misleading images, the narrative disregards the credible evidence presented in the CNN report as “a deliberate editorial choice that shaped a false picture of Tanzania.” This recurrent narrative can be seen across over 3200 posts mentioning the #RejectCNNLies. Notably, only 105 of the 3200 mentions were original posts, and over 3098 of them were reposts and replies. This activity, described as astroturfing, is a key characteristic of coordinated sponsored campaigns Africa Uncensored has investigated, meant to mimic public opinion.
In addition to the disinformation attacks targeting the authenticity of CNN, CNN’s Larry Madowo was personally attacked by the same accounts using the hashtag #LarrythePuppet and the name Larry Mauongo (meaning “Larry Lies” in Swahili). The image below is one of a few highly edited graphics of Madowo used in the disinformation campaign.
Below is a post sharing an AI-generated image of Larry Madowo alongside Tanzanian activists which appears to promote a false partisan narrative of Madowo. The one on the left uses known anti-LGBTQ imagery to make allegations against Larry Madowo, a form of digital abuse which he has highlighted since the airing of the report.
Hashtags mirroring and amplifying government narratives
The hashtags dismissed CNN’s investigative reporting as “one-sided and evidence-free”. Contrary to the claim, the report contained visual and sonic evidence, which was presented clearly throughout the piece. When responding to the investigation, Tanzania’s Chief Government Spokesman, Gerson Msigwa, called the reporting “one-sided” and “slanderous”. This same labelling can be seen across the bulk of tweets under the two hashtags here and here.
While the elections took place across Tanzania on October 29, 2025, protests were happening across many regions of the country. But the world was left in the dark about the happenings inside Tanzania, due to the internet shutdown. There were, however, several social media accounts on Instagram, X and Facebook, which were broadcasting gruesome videos allegedly from Tanzania. Among them were the Instagram accounts of US-based Tanzanian activist Mange Kimambi and Maria Tsehai Sarungi.
These accounts were crucial in mobilising and speaking out about the mass murders perpetrated by Tanzanian police; this has made them targets for a highly organised and defaming disinformation campaign.
On December 5, 2025, posts with the hashtag #MangeNarrativeExposed. In the weeks before that, over 13 hashtags targeting those who exposed the violence had emerged. Mange Kimambi was the main target of the attack. The accounts sought to undermine Kimambi’s activism and credibility by posting personal pictures of her. Technology facilitated gender-based violence was deployed in other posts targeting both male and female voices organising the protests.
These image-based attacks ranged from claims that Kimambi has been bribed by westerners to soil Tanzania’s image to claims that she had cosmetic surgery.
One feature of this campaign was the doxxing of figures involved in mobilising Tanzanians to protest. Personal details about their lives were revealed and shared online, including their location and who they were romantically linked to. “The instigators are not with you: they’re far away, benefiting from your actions,” one post with the hashtag #ExposeThePerpetrators read.
The makings of a sponsored disinformation campaign
Africa Uncensored spoke to an influencer involved in influencer campaigns for corporate and political brands who will not be named for their safety. The source could not verify the origin of the hashtags but stated that the operations are led and directed by individuals whom the influencers might not know directly, as they are contacted through ‘bigwigs’ – other influencers with massive followings on X, some of whom are involved in authentic campaigns as well.
According to the source, influence operations start in WhatsApp, where a group is created for specific campaigns and influencers are added. “Someone adds you to a group, sends the material, hashtags, graphics and photos, then tells you to start the job and hit the timeline at a specific time,” the source disclosed. The charges vary depending on the hashtag, going for around Ksh 500 per post or Ksh 500 to Ksh 700 for every 10 posts, the source confirmed. They told us that most of the influencers are ‘comrades’, university students who need the money to survive, making it difficult for them to turn down the gig.
In the range of clients from corporate to political campaigns, political hashtags can be hard bargains. “You can get between Ksh 1000 and Ksh 1500 for the posts shared,” the source revealed. This category of hashtags can be fatal. Albert Ojwang’, a young Kenyan influencer, was murdered in a police cell on June 8, 2025. The police accused him of posting defamatory content against the Kenya Police Service Deputy Inspector General Eliud Lagat. A claim that Africa Uncensored investigated here.
Two countries, one method of information manipulation
All the hashtags, over 31 monitored, used a collection of videos, images, and highly edited graphics which support the government’s narrative by refuting claims of mass murder, and accusing civil society of the violence. The majority of the graphics, as those in the image above, had features similar to those in the disinformation campaigns Africa Uncensored has seen targeting Kenyan activists during protests in 2024 and 2025. Below is a collage of graphics shared alongside another campaign, #ArrestTerroristActivists, which was trending on June 27, 2025.
Apart from the graphics, similar to the Kenyan government’s narrative after the June 2024 protests, the Tanzanian authorities accused global organisations of ‘funding the chaos’. In Kenya, President William Ruto accused the Ford Foundation of funding ‘anarchy’ when Kenyans took to the streets to protest against bad governance. President Suluhu, on the other hand, accused nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and protesters of being sponsored. “Where did the money come from?” Suluhu asked.
That narrative is reflected in some of the hashtags, including #NoToPaidActivists, #WhoBankrollsTheChaos, #PaidGoonsUnmasked, #UsalitiWaMabilioni and #SayNoToDestruction. Despite there being no evidence of ‘funding for violence’, the sustained attacks against Tanzanian activists continue to share the disinforming narrative. Below is a post that is part of the disinformation campaign.
After countries and multilateral organisations like the European Union (EU) and the United States of America issued statements condemning the violence meted out to protesters, the narratives shifted to target them. “The European Parliament resolution is full of inaccuracies and unverified claims – all to defend its favorite party in Tanzania, i.e., CHADEMA.,” one post reads. The campaign seems to use the neocolonial narrative to counter any form of international pressure for justice. Below is a collage of posts targeting the EU.
Where are the actors from?
Interestingly, the actors involved in all these campaigns include influencer accounts from both Kenya and Tanzania. We know this because X recently added a feature which made public the locations of users. The image below features four of the ten accounts with the most engagement. Some of the accounts appeared to be based in Western nations like the US or UK, this might be a result of VPNs in use in Tanzania since X was banned in the country early 2025.
Some of the accounts involved in the hashtags are based in Kenya, according to X’s transparency feature. In addition, they are involved in almost daily disinformation campaigns in the country. Below is a collage of the Kenyan profiles and their locations, appearing to be in Kenya.
Over the past two years, a cross-border crackdown on freedom of expression and protest has been enforced across Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, with human rights activists from all three countries facing abductions and arrests. Boniface Mwangi and Agather Atuhaire were abducted and sexually assaulted by people believed to act on behalf of the Tanzanian government when they went to attend the trial against opposition leader Tundu Lissu.Edison Mwakabela was arrested and tortured in an attempt to silence him as well. The goal here appears to be one of punishing free speech, silencing vocal actors, and stifling the rights and freedoms of citizens in a way that sends a message – speak up and you might be next.
This concerted effort to stifle freedoms has now translated online in the form of cross-border influence campaigns on X and TikTok. Hundreds of human rights violations have been documented with the Tanzanian and Kenyan governments as perpetrators. From our analysis, it appears that the two governments are now using similar tactics to tarnish the images and reputations of of activists, and while the violence here is online, thousands of people, including regular citizens, have faced violence online and offline for protesting. The future of democracy in East Africa hangs in the balance as autocracy rears its ugly head.
This article was produced with research and data analysis by Moffin Njoroge of Code for Africa’s iLab.
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