HOW PROPAGANDA , MISINFORMATION AND DISINFORMATION HAS ROCKED OUR POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS.

The political campaigns are hitting the fever pitch as they are heading to the homestretch. Days and time is melting away and the D-Day is coming closer. Already , the Country is in the campaign and elections mood and mose. Different political candidates drawn from various political outfits and independent candidates are combing their spheres of influence to try and woo the VOTERS to cast their votes in their favor. To sum this up , presidential candidates especially Kenya Kwanza Alliance and Azimio la Umoja have robust social media teams which are shooting for them. In doing this , they are peddling both fake news , propaganda ment to disinform and misinform in their quest to shape the opinion of Kenyans in favour of their preferred presidential candidates. Fact!!! In this case , propaganda has taken the root. 

What is Propaganda? It is information especially of a biased or misleading nature , used to promote a political cause or point of view. Then , what's Misinformation? False or inaccurate information especially that which is deliberately intended to deceive. And then , let's ask ourselves too , what's disinformation? It is false information deliberately and oftenly covertly spread ( as by the planting of rumours) , in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth. In KENYA'S social media spaces , it is awash with alot of misinformation, disinformation and propaganda. That's Why , as a responsible Kenya , you need to be very vigilant lest , you will be fed with fake news which is aimed at altering your public opinion and reasoning. I will explain that in depth. Propaganda was a good cause many years ago. Pope Gregory XV came up with a committee that was ment to spread the word of God. It was went by the word  "Congregation de propaganda fide" . In English , it loosely ment a congregation for propagating the faith. It is the likes of Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler and his minister for Propaganda and information Paul Joseph Goebbels who corrupted that word and used it for political cause. Aim?? To disinform and misinform. 

In this case , digital technologies hold great promise for Democracy. Social media tools and the wider resources of the internet after tremendous access to data , knowledge , social networks, and collective engagements , opportunities, and can help us to build better democracies. Unwelcome obstacles are however , disrupting the creative democratic applications of information technologies. Massive social platforms like Facebook and Twitter are struggling to come to grips with the ways their creations can be used for political control. Social Media algorithms may be creating echo Chambers in which public conversations get polluted. Surveillance capabilities are out stripping civil protections. Political bots ( Software agents used to generate sample messages and " conversations" on social media) are masquerading as genuine people to manipulate public opinion. Political Parties , candidates and their supporters who are techno savvy who some form part of the communication secretariat of this candidates are employing a combination of people and bots- software built to mimic real users in an attempt to artificially shape public opinion and life.

 The most notorious political camp in KENYA'S  political sphere especially during this campaign period is Kenya Kwanza Alliance. Their subsidiary the UDA party has been using their communications teams to zoom the photos their take in the political rallies inorder to create a perception that they are the most followed political outfit in Kenya. As yourself , why do they post general close up and general oblique photographs? They only post those photos which have been captured using the aerial angle using drones? The reason is , it is easier to manipulate the aerial photos than the general oblique and general close up photos.  If you closely look at this photos critically and analytically , you will see alot of misses in them. The distance between the structures , the masses and campaign motorcades is always huge. If you look at the same photos in the mainstream media outlets , you will note a very huge difference. The ones which the likes of Itumbi post are always manipulated. For your information , Itumbi has never share any other type of photos apart those captured using the aerial drone cameras. And he usually do that after manipulating them.

In this digital era , we have the new type of Propaganda tool called the computational propaganda. It is a term that nearly encapsulates this recent phenomenon and emerging field of study of digital misinformation and manipulation. As a communication propaganda tool , computational propaganda describe the use of algorithms , automation and human curation to purposely fully manage and distribute misleading information over social media networks. As a part of the process , coders and their automated software products ( including bots) will learn from and imitate legitimate social media users inorder to manipulate public opinion across a diverse range of platforms and device networks. The bots are built to behave as real people ( for example, automatically generating and responding to conversations online) and then let loose over social media sites in order to amplify or supress particular political messages. You may ask yourself , why some political figures use their social media handles to peddle this kind of computational propaganda. For example , a political figure will post in his handle and within 10 minutes , he has gathered almost 1000 likes and 500 comments. The question is , where do all this people come from within 10 minutes? Common sense should tell you that , political bots are at work. The softwares that masquerades as real people likes and comments inorder to sway the public opinion. Other political bots will even disabled the comments section and manipulate the likes section and the share one. 

 The hilarious part of it is that , this automated "social actors" can be used to bolster particular Political figures by supporting them actively and enthusiastically , while simultaneously drowning out any dissenting voices. To rewind on bots , both political and social bots used for political manipulation  thus representing an effective tool for driving online propaganda, misinformation and disinformation. One person, or a small group , can fairly create or co-ordinate an army of political bots on Twitter , YouTube , Instagram and Facebook inorder to give an illusion of a large scale consensus or interestel in a particular issue especially political one. Now you know how algorithms and manipulative softwares plays with your minds in this social media spaces. Russia is notorious with this kind of nonsense and during the US PRESIDENTIAL campaign in 2016 , they manipulated the social media spaces in that Country by portraying Republican Candidate Donald Trump as the most preferred candidate. 

In Kenya , the Kenya Kwanza Alliance have been relying on this kind of computational propaganda to show that , the outfit is the most preferred outfit. They fully understand that , many Kenyans in the social media spaces aren't keen to decipher this kind of manipulation , misinformation and disinformation. Trump was planted by the Russian Intelligence by even hacking into their electoral systems and college. We all see how it ended. Even now , how can Kenyans vote in a political outfit that have never been authentic? Faking everything from zooming photos , plagiarising both the speeches and manifestos , do we have a future in such leaders? It is very sad. As for Kenya Kwanza Alliance , they have never been factual. They have perfected the art of lying , propaganda , misinformation and disinformation. Politics of escapism is their daily fodder.