MWAMISI: Should Kenya Establish a Social Media Ethics Authority?

Spend a few minutes scrolling through any trending topic on X, watch a viral TikTok rant, or observe a Facebook exchange on matters of public interest, and you are confronted, not with thoughtful engagement or deliberation, but with a flood of abuse, ridicule, tribal baiting and deliberate distortion.

The Kenyan social media space has long descended from what it promised to be, a democratic frontier for openness, civic participation and informed expression. It has become a hostile arena where digital lynchings are routine and facts are expendable. This downturn, which began quietly around the 2013 general election, grew visibly malignant by 2017. What the creators of social media originally conceived of as a tool for connection, transparency and the democratisation of voices has, in our context, morphed into a mechanism for polarisation, intimidation and reputational destruction. We are not simply witnessing the degradation of online conduct; we are observing the corrosion of the public mind.