[kictanet] Regulating hate speech and incitement to violence during elections in Kenya

Benson Muite benson_muite at emailplus.org
Tue Dec 14 13:07:25 EAT 2021 

Polarising content is not addictive in every society:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaoice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(bot)

We should also be developing natural language processing tools to 
support our own languages rather than expecting others to do that for us 
- not just for hate speech, but also positive uses such as ensuring good 
grammar and spelling, voice assistants etc.

South Africa has made multilingualism an important part of its culture, 
and Tanzania has really promoted Kiswahili (almost all government 
websites are bilingual).

Somalia, being mostly a mono-lingual country has made great efforts in 
language promotion having a Regional Somali Language Academy 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regional_Somali_Language_Academy - note 
the last sentence in this article "As of August 2017, there is no 
representation for the Somali-speaking community in Kenya".

Rwanda also being a mostly monolingual country has also made great 
efforts in language promotion, see for example 
https://www.ralc.gov.rw/index.php?id=2 .

In Kenya, central government websites and official interaction is almost 
always in English, Kiswahili is hard to find despite being an official 
language, even our Katiba:
https://constitutionnet.org/sites/default/files/kenya_swahili_constitution_of_2010.pdf 

is only easily officially available in English:
http://www.kenyalaw.org/kl/fileadmin/pdfdownloads/Constitution/
In comparison for Tanzania we have
https://www.tanzania.go.tz/egov_uploads/documents/KATIBA%20YA%20JAMHURI%20YA%20MUUNGANO%20WA%20TANZANIA%20YA%20MWAKA.pdf
and for South Africa:
https://justice.gov.za/legislation/constitution/pdf.html

Not a single county government website includes the dominant language(s) 
of the region - this is one way to create corpora from which natural 
language processing tools can be built, as well as to ensure employment 
opportunities for people with good language skills.

We have however made great progress in radio, and some progress in TV in 
having information and discussion in a number of languages, so maybe 
locally grown social media and local internet content will follow, 
especially if it can be monetized and compete fairly.  Our languages and 
cultures also have positive consequences, though it seems they are most 
visibly use to mobilize voting blocks.

Penye nia pana njia.

On 12/13/21 2:46 PM, Adrian Teri via KICTANet wrote:
> Good day Mr Muite,
> 
> On the question of big brother, no one is fit or should have the say 
> and/or control of a population greater than all the Southern 
> hemisphere + India >= 3 Billion people!
> 
> In the first place we have unquestionably learnt that polarising or 
> things that make us angry are the most engaging. The 
> motivation/interests of social media companies is to simply keep as many 
> eyeballs, Monthly Active Users (MAU's), glued to screens so they can 
> push as many #ads.
> 
>   #FaceBook especially sucks at local content moderation. As indicated 
> earlier Kenya has 42 languages. Just imagine the size of teams that 
> would be required the whole of Africa? They lean to "Machine Learning" 
> to solve the problem which generally sucks as they want to maximize 
> shareholder value by having less number of employees. Scott Galloway has 
> an excellent presentation from 2017 illustrating this from "The Four" - 
> _https://youtu.be/GWBjUsmO-Lw?t=2234 
> <https://youtu.be/GWBjUsmO-Lw?t=2234>._Staring @ 37:14
> 
> #FaceBook sucks at moderating in English. In Arabic, it's a disaster - 
> _https://restofworld.org/2021/facebook-is-bad-at-moderating-in-english-in-arabic-its-a-disaster/ 
> <https://restofworld.org/2021/facebook-is-bad-at-moderating-in-english-in-arabic-its-a-disaster/>_
> 
> I have read reports that attribute the magnitude of #Myanmar and now 
> #Ethiopia's mess to lack of content moderation - 
> _https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/25/business/ethiopia-violence-facebook-papers-cmd-intl/index.htm 
> <https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/25/business/ethiopia-violence-facebook-papers-cmd-intl/index.htm>_l
> 
> FacaBook AI moderation sucks because moderation at scale is impossible - 
> _https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20211020/13270147784/facebook-ai-moderation-continues-to-suck-because-moderation-scale-is-impossible.shtml 
> <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20211020/13270147784/facebook-ai-moderation-continues-to-suck-because-moderation-scale-is-impossible.shtml>_
> 
> Leave alone civil societies, can a gov'ts get data of it's own country? 
> Now that #FaceBook is on the war path using their arsenal of Copyright, 
> Terms of Service & Computer and Misuse Acts, they claim they want to 
> prevent another #Cambridge Analytica by quashing all research efforts 
> even where the user has permitted a plugin/extension in their own 
> volition(It is important to note that any data/metadata you add or is 
> created in your usage of many services is not your own!). Well, they 
> lost that privilege when they let them do it earlier.
> 
> An excellent Twitter Thread by Cory Doctorow 
> -_https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1374785763779375104?s=20 
> <https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1374785763779375104?s=20>_
> __
> The EFF has an excellent piece on questions to ask, what to demand of 
> content moderation and the U.S election 
> -_https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/content-moderation-and-us-election-what-ask-what-demand 
> <https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/content-moderation-and-us-election-what-ask-what-demand>_
> 
> As seen in the recent #USA election will the #Algorithm be cut back for 
> safety during the Kenyan electioneering period next year?
> 
> I see only one solution. Null route or drop all packets to and from 
> Social sites that could care less at the eXchange points.
> 
> In fact start doing so from the New Year!
> 
> The cleaver/intelligent learn from the mistakes of others. Also, those 
> who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
> 
> Yours Kindly,
> Adrian
> 
>     ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>     From: Benson Muite <benson_muite at emailplus.org
>     <mailto:benson_muite at emailplus.org>>
>     To: kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke <mailto:kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
>     Cc:
>     Bcc:
>     Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2021 16:25:07 +0300
>     Subject: Re: [kictanet] Regulating hate speech and incitement to
>     violence during elections in Kenya
>     An interesting piece that raises the question of who should be assigned
>     the role of Big Brother[1]?
> 
>     Part of the problem is that many local agencies have poor mechanisms of
>     updating and alerting the public, for example through their own
>     websites. Obtaining information through convenient social media
>     platforms becomes the norm without any fallback references.
> 
>     This list is an example of a space for open constructive discussion
>     under local control. More such spaces are needed.
> 
>     A critical and informed citizenry are the long term solution, but even
>     with an informed citizenry, information overload makes propagation of
>     fear, uncertainty and doubt easy.
> 
>     Attached image modified from[2] and available under licensi ya sanaa
>     huru!
> 
>     [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(Nineteen_Eighty-Four)
>     <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Brother_(Nineteen_Eighty-Four)>
>     [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1984-Big-Brother.jpg
>     <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1984-Big-Brother.jpg>
> 
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