Following a spat between Moses Kuria, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary (CS) for the Ministry of Investments, Trade and Industry (MITI) and the Nation Media Group (NMG), the phrases #CSMusaIsRight, Rogue NMG and MITI CS MsemaKweli trended on Twitter on June 20, 2023. In this article, Piga Firimbi finds that the three hashtags were pushed by a network of accounts, coordinated to discredit the Nation Media Group, while containing captions like; “Kenyans are supporting Moses Kuria to stop media business in Kenya,” posted on a verified account here (archived here).
The three phrases became top Twitter trends with the help of over 1,800 posts prominently from 15 Twitter accounts that used the hashtags on more than 50 posts within a span of three hours, from 12PM to 3PM on June 20, 2023.
What appears to be a smear campaign against the Nation Media Group began on June 18, 2023 when Moses Kuria remarked (see archived post here) that the Nation Media Group supposedly supports the opposition. In a public rant, Moses Kuria also announced that the government would no longer advertise on Nation Media Group’s platforms. True to his word, the CS, via Twitter, consequently flagged government advertisements on the Business Daily and the Daily Nation.
In solidarity with NMG, media organizations like the Kenya Union of Journalists, the Media Council of Kenya and the Kenya Editors’ Guild (KEG) issued statements condemning Moses Kuria’s remarks. KEG demanded an apology from the CS. Although the CS has received public support from the two top offices in government.
In an interview on June 21, 2023 President William Ruto said; “We must defend the free media, to say whatever that they want to say. Even to write propaganda. We must also defend the right of those who call out the media when the media goes rogue. We must defend the rights of people like Moses Kuria to speak their mind.” (see archived post here).
Similarly, Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua on June 23, 2023 held the stance that it’s about time that someone, presumably the government, held the media accountable after a long time of government officials taking it all “in stride”. (archived here)
In a plan to soon “make mainstream media irrelevant”, Kikuyu Member of Parliament Kimani Ichungwah reportedly said that the government will apparently create new media channels where digital content creators would inform people via social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp. It appears this has already kicked off, with the Nation Media Group being among the first casualties.
A smear campaign was launched against NMG on June 20, 2023 on Twitter. It contained evidently coordinated efforts. Different elements give this away, with the most apparent being that most tweets were posted between 12PM and 3PM on the same day. Another sign of coordination was the use of the same text, verbatim, by different users. Notice that most of them also use all three hashtags- #CSMusaIsRight, Rogue NMG and MITI CS MsemaKweli– on each post.
Below is another illustration of inauthentic coordinated behaviour, showing the number of times a certain post was repeated verbatim.
Besides the text-based posts, the campaign also used image-based content in the form of derogatory text smeared on NMG’s newspaper cut-outs. The photos are plastered with words like “petty and partisan reporting”, “media cartels” and “rogue media”.
A video, showing a big black dog, said to represent Moses Kuria, alongside a small dog, said to be NMG, was also repeatedly used on tweets posted here, here, here and here.
The defaced images were reused on different posts despite glaring spelling errors. One, for instance, despite the typo “medit cartels” instead of media cartels is reused here, here and here. Another image, containing yet another spelling mistake, reads “pretty and partisan reporting” instead of petty and partisan reporting was reshared here, here, here and here. Note that all the tweets were posted on June 20, 2023 from 12PM to 3PM, and that the same accounts shared the images and video, all while containing all the three hashtags on each post.
In a phone interview with Piga Firimbi, famed blogger and social media influencer Cyprian Nyakundi confirmed that the anti-NMG Twitter campaign was paid for.
“I am in WhatsApp groups with some of the people that were involved,” he said, “the campaign was paid for.”
Piga Firimbi also reached out to one of the accounts involved. The owner, who preferred to be anonymous, and is referred to as Ken in this article, confirmed that the campaign was sponsored. He showed Piga Firimbi an M-Pesa receipt of Sh700 that was sent to him as compensation for participating in the campaign.
The tweet archived here was the first to be posted in the campaign, setting the tone for subsequent posts. It contains all the three hashtags and was posted at 12:02PM on June 20, 2023. It is also from a verified account named @finest_likoni. The account is verified under Twitter Blue’s paid plan.
@finest_likoni is among the few accounts that posted original tweets in the campaign. The account’s activity records a total of 179 posts containing the three hashtags. Below is a Gephi analysis revealing accounts that retweeted @finest_likoni directly.
Below is another analysis revealing the network of accounts amplifying the three hashtags, with @finest_likoni being the key amplifier.
These accounts also registered an unlikelihood of bot-like behaviour according to Truthnest. This implies that the campaign was operated by a people through coordinated efforts.
Some of the verified Twitter accounts used in this campaign include @dismus__ke (archived posts here & here) @emaboy28, whose profile photo is from an article published here (see archived posts here & here) @ItsKiprotich1 (archived here & here) and @ItsKyuleNgao (archived here). All these accounts are verified via Twitter Blue’s paid plan, which is the platform’s new policy that overlooks the credibility of verified accounts as long as the user can pay $8 per month (about Ksh1,128).
@RICHIESTORN (archive here) and @ItsKyuleNgao registered the most original content in the campaign, both with 99 tweets, posted on June 20, 2023 between 12PM to 3PM. Other accounts that registered more than 80 tweets within the anti-NMG campaign are @prince_ndambiri (archive here) @dismus__ke @ItsElderK (archive here) @agalis_pompy (archive here).
Yet another notable account involved in the campaign is one impersonating CNN, @CNNRb_, whose profile contains the CNN logo and CNN presenters. (see archived)
33-year-old Nyakundi has been working in the Kenyan digital space for over a decade. He told Piga Firimbi that almost all political campaigns recently have been sponsored. Unlike before, when politically-motivated hashtags were largely organic, containing people’s sentiments that expressed their frustration with the government or a leader. He explained what it took to make a topic trend before, and how this has changed.
“Before it took about 20 accounts pushing a campaign for about two hours. Now, it takes more than 30 accounts, and over 1,600 posts pushing the campaign continuously for about two hours. They also need to have unique IP addresses, unique organic posts and come from different locations, so that they are not flagged.”
Cyprian Nyakundi
Up until the 2016 Cambridge Analytica debacle that brought about digital platform policy changes, Nyakundi said that they would conduct “platform manipulation”, where they would create bot accounts to push a campaign. He also notes that Twitter campaigns these days are often hijacked by vendors who use hashtags to market their products.
Nyakundi further told Piga Firimbi that political campaigns attract the highest compensation, with about Ksh70,000 allocated per campaign, as opposed to commercial campaigns which usually have a budget of about Ksh30,000. The lion’s share goes to those mobilising influencers. He calls them “cartels”.
On the other hand, Ken, who began working as an influencer in 2018 said he was introduced to it by his older brother when he had finished school and could not get a job. He says each campaign pays influencers Ksh700 to Ksh1,000. The 25-year-old told Piga Firimbi that he gets about Sh40,000- 50,000 a month from running multiple campaigns off the ten accounts that he owns. The money caters for his operational costs which include his two verified accounts and internet subscription. For him, this is a means to an end. To finance his ambitions of running his own construction company, which is what he studied for.
A Truthnest analysis revealed that the accounts that ran the Moses Kuria campaign also previously ran commercial campaigns.
The accounts @finest_likoni (archived here) and @emaboy28 (archived here) tweeted the most on the hashtag, #PaySiiToMpesa campaign, according to analyses on Truthnest. @agalis_pompy (archived here) was also part of this campaign. The campaign promotes a payment platform.
Another commercial campaign run by some of the accounts is #DeansDental, and #SmilesWithDeansDental which market a dental clinic in Nairobi. The two hashtags were tweeted by @mawiadoro (see archived here) and @ItsKiprotich1 (archived here) accounts. Yet another notable commercial campaign run by some of the accounts involved is by Carrefour Supermarkets under hashtags #CarrefourThurDeals #CarrefourMidYearSale #CarrefourSatoDeals
Nyakundi explained how the campaigns are coordinated:
“First, a client (a politician or business), through their officials communicates to a few major influencers that they want something to trend. Usually, they issue a document of the words that would be used so people don’t go off the script. There are numerous WhatsApp groups where the major influencers will for instance say they want 20 people who own four accounts. At times you may not trend. When this happens, you have to repeat the job.”
Cyprian Nyakundi
Corroborating this, Ken showed Piga Firimbi a WhatsApp group named ‘Kuria Msema Ukweli’, Swahili for Kuria the truth-teller that was created at 11AM on June 20, 2023. The group’s admin, who Ken also refers to as one of the “cartels” gave clear instructions. The instructions contained the three hashtags that would trend- #CSMusaIsRight, Rogue NMG, and MITI CS MsemaKweli, as well as photos to be used. These instructions also included the caveat- “No trend, no pay”.
Having created the group at 11AM, tweets went out until about 3PM, and indeed made top trends in Kenya. As a result, the M-Pesa notifications of Sh700 for each influencer consequently streamed in from 6PM. Such is the case of a clear day, Ken said they have a Swahili phrase for such days when “Till ni safi”. This is when a sponsored campaign can easily trend because there is no heated debate taking place. Busy and hard-to-trend days happen when there has been a football match or a political event that a lot of people would be discussing on social media.
As to the question of whether they are fairly compensated, Nyakundi said it best serves students, who often run different campaigns simultaneously. Also because they are already issued with the words to use, they can schedule posts without having to live tweet. Although he noted that the few influencers who are closest to the source make the most money.
“There are cartels. You can find that the very first person to get the job was even given half a million, but there could be about four brokers before the money gets to the influencers,” Nyakundi told Piga Firimbi.
From his personal experience, he told Piga Firimbi that his highest-paying influencer gig paid Ksh2 million, although it was a high-risk job that needed security. This is a common occupational hazard especially when dealing with political campaigns, he said, citing the murder case of two people that were killed while working on President Ruto’s campaign in 2022.
“Another common problem is that the said cartels would run away with our money after we have finished the job,” Ken told Piga Firimbi.
Asked about the role of social media in shaping public opinion, Nyakundi cites his most successful work, which was during the last Kenyan elections. Ahead of the September 2022 elections, Nyakundi told Piga Firimbi he worked for President Ruto’s camp. He highlighted some of the strategies that he thinks had a direct impact on voter decisions. This included amplifying a video of opposition leader Raila Odinga’s wife, Ida Odinga, saying that churches should be regulated. For the digital campaigns, Ida Odinga’s speech was miscontextualised to claim that she would shut down churches if Raila got elected.
In a country of over 80% Christians, Ida Odinga’s speech and the misinformation around it seemingly had an impact on the electorate. So much so that she had to apologize for her remarks, perhaps when the damage was already done.
Nyakundi also told Piga Firimbi that amplifying the notion that “Raila is a puppet” also gave his team an edge. He further noted that, unlike Ruto’s campaign team, Raila Odinga’s team was also not on TikTok, making his reach relatively inferior to Ruto’s. Kenya is home to the most active TikTok users in the world according to the Reuters Digital News Report 2023.
Ken also said that he too was busy for the September 2022 general election campaigns. Except he lost a Twitter account of over 50K followers. His account was flagged because, as part of the job, he would post derogatory remarks about some politicians. For this reason, Ken said he is happy with Elon Musk’s Twitter. “Nowadays Twitter is a free space”, he remarked. He can now reap the full benefits of the revamped Twitter, especially backed by the plausible credibility of his two verified accounts under Twitter Blue.
In response to whether social media could ever fully replace mainstream media, Nyakundi thinks mainstream media is here to stay.
“Foreign organizations depend on guys like Nation Media to know about the country and make investments or issue loans because they believe they know best about the country. Moses Kuria’s term will come and go and when he dies the Daily Nation will be there to write his obituary,” Nyakundi said.
In his defense, CS Kuria said he knew that a group of NMG journalists were allegedly “coerced to write anti-government stories by their editors and management in a scheme sponsored by a former president.”
This fallout is amid Kenya dropping in the freedom of the press index by 47 places, to position 116 out of 200 countries in 2023. A feature by Africa Uncensored here, delves into the reasons behind the recent receding press freedom in Kenya.
Do you think there is a future where the digital space completely eliminates mainstream media?
This article was produced with mentorship from the African Academy for Open Source Investigations (AAOSI), to tackle disinformation that undermines our democracies, as part of an initiative by the International Centre for Journalists (ICFJ) and Code for Africa (CfA). Visit disinfo.africa for more information.
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