One Week To Make Changes Or Be Suspended- NCIC To Facebook
The commission was responding to a report by Global Witness that exposed Facebook's failure to...
Marvin Chege 
The National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) has given Meta-owned social media giant, Facebook, seven days to make changes in line with its regulations or be suspended in Kenya.
NCIC Commissioner Danvas Makori urged the app to crack down on cases of hate speech being spread by its users across the platform, failure to which it will be frozen in the Kenyan territory.
The commission was responding to a report by Global Witness that exposed Facebook's failure to detect ads with hate speech messages.
NCIC Commissioner Danvas Makori. /DAILY NATION
The report revealed that Facebook approved 20 ads (10 in English and 10 in Swahili) promoting ethnic violence and calling for rape, slaughter and beheading of persons.
“If Facebook does not comply with the requirements that we set for them within seven days, we will recommend that Facebook services be suspended,” Makori announced.
The commission further accused the platform of failing to work with NCIC to promote peace in the country as it heads to the August 9 general elections.
Makori further blamed Facebook for suppressing its efforts in combating hate speech and promote peace, hence ruining its chances of having the initiative successful.
“We have been trying to push peace messages on Facebook but Facebook has been suppressing them. We have been unable to fight hate speech because Facebook has refused to allow us to publish these messages," Makori added.
The Commission had earlier demanded Facebook to pull down any content that could warrant hate speech between Kenyans ahead of the elections, which the platform complied and did so on July 20.
The move is part of NCIC's mandate to avoid the resurgence of a trend where past election cycles have been ruined by violence and clashes.
It is currently running a campaign dubbed Elections Bila Noma, which is translated to elections without violence.
The Samuel Kobia-led commission has been calling upon vigilance on all social media sites and urging Kenyan users to flag any content that may contain hate speech or incitement.
Facebook is yet to respond to the demand. It comes despite Interior Cabinet Secretary, Fred Matiang’i assuring that social media in Kenya would not be shut down during the polls.
"We are not going to do those things that people do in other places on Earth like turn off the internet or switch off Twitter , those will not happen in this country.
"This is a confident government. We are not going to harass people, break the law or interfere with the freedoms of our people. We will call people to account." he insisted in 2021.
Interior CS Fred Matiang’i during the launch of first National Risk Assessment Report highlighting avenues of money laundering, terror financing on July 27, 2022. /CAPITAL GROUP
