The government and tech companies have been left stumbling over themselves to control the messages which may spark violence as the country heads to the General Election in less than a month.Less than a fortnight ago, new guidelines on social media use were drafted, with a proposed fine of Sh1 million or a jail term of five years for Kenyans sharing inflammatory content via Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp this election season.However, even with the guidelines by social networking sites and the local National Cohesion and Integration Act individuals still use loopholes in the system to propagate inflammatory messages.“The proportion of users on Facebook compared to those who report content that should not be on Facebook is very small,” says Ebele Okobi, Public Policy Director Africa, Facebook. In addition, some users put up fake accounts to post threats and inflammatory comment, hiding behind anonymity to get off without being prosecuted.“Hate speech for Facebook is content that attacks individuals based on actual or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender or gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or disease,” said Ms Okobi.This creates the need for users to play their role in prevention and stopping hate crimes on social networking and messaging sites.“There are many things that people feel that the government is responsible for. I have people calling me to have stuff pulled down,” said ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru.According to Mr Mucheru, social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube have a responsibility for the content on their pages.The sites are also required to submit public reports on how many posts were flagged and how many were removed under the law that comes into force in October.In Kenya, there is no law on the responsibility of a site on content posted on it, only individuals are targeted.“Repeat offenders on the site have accounts deactivated or are placed under check points  or in very severe instances, they are permanently removed from the site,” said Ms Okobi.

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