Tik Tok and Manipulated Content: A Qualitative Analysis of Moderation Strategies to Misleading Political Campaign Messages in Kenya

This paper investigates misleading political campaign material circulated on social media, especially in Kenya. It also investigates whether TikTok’s content regulation strategies against politically manipulated information are effective. TikTok is of key interest because it is the most rapidly growing with increased fame especially among the Kenyan Youth. This study adopts a qualitative case study design informed by Gatekeeping and Social Responsibility for analyzing patterns. Twenty-one secondary data sources were utilized. In addition, Policy documents were scrutinized. More so, platform governance reports were considered. The manipulated content realized from the findings include fabricated videos, coordinated fake news campaigns, as well as algorithmically driven hate speech. The paper further outlines suggested moderation strategies, automated flagging of content, banning user accounts, as well as classifying deceptive content. The results reveal that there is still a lot that needs to be done. There are reasonable gaps in moderating Swahili-language and multilingual content. Successful intervention strategies require AI systems that are context-sensitive and collaboration with African civil organizations to develop structures that are locally relevant.

Social responsibility, content moderation, gate keeping, TikTok, election campaign, political misinformation, Kenya

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