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11May

CIPESA Urges Rights-Centred Approach to Uganda’s AI Strategy

Author CIPESA Posted on

By CIPESA Writer |

The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) has submitted recommendations to Uganda’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Emerging Technologies Strategy national taskforce, calling for a human rights-centred approach to the governance of these technologies.

The submission, made in response to the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance’s ongoing process to develop a National AI and Emerging Technologies Strategy, welcomes Uganda’s ambition to harness AI for development. At the same time, CIPESA cautions that innovation must be matched with the legal, institutional, and ethical safeguards needed to protect people from harms.

Discussions on Uganda’s AI policy come at a moment when AI technologies are already being deployed in both public and private sectors. The submission states that AI-enhanced tools are currently employed in customs risk profiling at the Uganda Revenue Authority, customer service functions, digital financial services, research organisations, and environmental monitoring initiatives.

In agriculture, AI-powered tools can support weather forecasting, pest detection, control and prevention, and tailored advice for farmers, whereas in healthcare, they can enhance disease detection, diagnostics, prescription and help address shortages in medical personnel. These applications highlight the transformative potential of AI, yet there are also concerns around surveillance, exclusion, discrimination, and misuse of personal data.

The submission is informed by CIPESA’s broader work on digital rights in Africa, including the Navigating the Implications of AI on Digital Democracy in Uganda report, which emphasises the growing impact of AI-driven technologies on online expression, political communication, surveillance practices, and civic participation.

The recommendations also build on CIPESA’s earlier work on developing an inclusive AI ecosystem for Uganda. According to the policy brief, An Artificial Intelligence Eco-System for Uganda, the country’s existing legal and policy frameworks provide a fragmented foundation for regulating AI and responding to emerging risks such as algorithmic bias, automated discrimination, opaque decision-making, and AI-enabled surveillance.

Accordingly, CIPESA calls for a rights-by-design approach to AI governance. High-risk AI systems used by both public and private actors should be transparent, auditable, and subject to independent oversight. It also calls for mandatory Human Rights Impact Assessments for AI systems used in sensitive sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, education, taxation, law enforcement, and social protection.

The submission further recommends dedicated legal and policy measures that address algorithmic transparency, automated decision-making, public-sector AI procurement, safeguards against discriminatory outcomes, and mechanisms for redress where harm occurs.

CIPESA also raises concerns about the growing use of automated systems in areas such as digital lending and mobile money services, where millions of Ugandans are already subjected to algorithmic profiling and automated credit scoring with limited transparency or accountability. The submission recommends that Uganda’s AI strategy should establish clear safeguards and oversight standards for both existing and future AI systems.

While AI presents significant opportunities for improving public service delivery and supporting development priorities, CIPESA stresses that such systems must be built using representative local datasets, and designed in ways that minimise bias, exclusion, and discriminatory outcomes.

The organisation further stresses that AI governance must be inclusive and participatory. The submission calls for meaningful involvement of civil society organisations, academia, technical experts, and affected communities in shaping Uganda’s AI strategy. It also recommends multilingual and accessible AI-enabled platforms that support citizen participation through channels that are accessible to underserved and low-literacy communities.

Beyond governance safeguards, CIPESA urges the government to invest in local AI research, innovation, and infrastructure development. It recommends support for universities, innovation hubs, and local startups, alongside the establishment of national AI research centres and dedicated funding mechanisms. Earlier recommendations by CIPESA also proposed the creation of a national AI Research Fund and citizen awareness programmes to improve public understanding of AI technologies and their societal implications.

Without deliberate investment in local capacity, Uganda risks becoming merely a supplier of raw data to foreign technology companies while deriving limited economic value from AI technologies. This would also deepen dependence on externally developed systems that may not fully reflect local contexts, needs, or priorities.

CIPESA additionally calls for alignment between Uganda’s strategy and broader regional initiatives, including the African Union Continental AI Strategy and wider African efforts on digital governance, data protection, and platform accountability.

Ultimately, CIPESA argues that Uganda’s AI and Emerging Technologies Strategy should put people first, ensuring that innovation and emerging technologies are matched with clear safeguards and meaningful oversight.

Read the full submission here: CIPESA Submissions on Uganda AI and Emerging Technology Strategy

13Jun

Smell The Coffee Kenya, Disinformation Is Brewing!

Author CIPESA Posted on

By Juliet Nanfuka |

Just over a year ago, Kenya was in the midst of a bitterly contested general election held in August 2022. The electoral period was characterised by hate speech and disinformation, which remain prevalent today. Indeed, recent studies have highlighted a booming disinformation industry in the country, fuelled by political, economic and personal interests with many actors including politicians, content creators, and citizens churning out hate speech and disinformation on social media platforms. 

During the election period, disinformation and hate speech circulated widely as social media personalities and ordinary citizens on various sides of the political divide coordinated and shared inciteful and hateful content. Influencers with a large following on the platforms are often bankrolled by politicians to recruit and coordinate micro-influencers to develop common disinformation and hate narratives and push hashtags which often trend on social media. Further, social media trolls engage through Facebook posts, tweets and WhatsApp groups with targeted hate against ethnic communities such as the Kalenjin, Kikuyu and Luo, the ethnic communities of current president William Ruto, former president Uhuru Kenyatta, and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, respectively. 

Amidst the election-related disinformation blitz, social media platforms seemed to do either too little or nothing to stop the spread of harmful and illegal content. An investigation by Global Witness and Foxglove in June 2022 showed that Facebook failed to detect inflammatory and violent hate speech ads posted on its platforms in Swahili and English. Further, the investigation found that even after putting out a statement in July 2022 on its efforts to combat harmful content, including 37,000 pieces of Kenyan content removed from Facebook and Instagram for violating its hate speech policies, similar hate speech ads were later approved on their platforms. 

Likewise, in July 2022 Twitter was blamed by local actors for profiting from its negligence by allowing its trending topic section to be exploited through paid influencers to amplify malicious, coordinated, inauthentic attacks to silence Kenya’s civil society, muddy their reputations and stifle the reach of their messaging. In September 2021, Twitter suspended 100 accounts from Kenya for violating the platform’s manipulations and spam policy after being found to have been tweeting pre-determined hashtags meant to misinform the public and attack certain personalities. In June 2022, the company suspended 41 accounts promoting the hashtag #ChebukatiCannotBeTrusted, which suggested that the then Chairperson of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) was supporting one of the presidential candidates. 

TikTok, which has gained popularity among younger audiences, has also come under scrutiny after disinformation and hate content was found on its platform ahead of the August 2022 election. A study by Mozilla found 132 videos that had been viewed collectively over four million times, which were spreading hate speech and inciting violence against some ethnic communities. Some also featured synthetic and manipulated content couched as Netflix documentaries, news stories and fake opinion polls or fake tweets aimed at triggering violence, fear and violence as was witnessed during the 2007 post-election period. According to the report, TikTok suffered context bias and its content moderation practices were not robust enough to tackle the spread of such content on its platform. TikTok has since removed the videos highlighted in the report. 

According to Kenya’s hate speech watchdog, the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC), hate speech content is most prevalent on Facebook and Twitter. In July 2022, the NCIC ordered Meta to address hate speech and incitement on its Facebook platform within a week or face a suspension of its operations in the country. In August 2022, the Commission also found an increase in hate content on TikTok. Some of the hate and disinformation hashtags it identified on the various platforms included #RejectRailaOdinga, #Riggagy and #RutoMalizaUfungwe, which propagated falsehoods against candidates in the presidential election.

Some critics have argued that social media platforms have shown a consistent failure to adequately moderate content in Kenya. Furthermore, the platforms’ attempts at content moderation are implemented in a lacklustre, under-funded and opaque system that is neither participatory nor rights-respecting. Other studies have also shown that platforms continue to inconsistently enforce their own rules through flawed content moderation practices and in essence permit the spread of extreme, divisive and polarising content partly due to their lack of understanding of Kenya’s cultural context and local languages and slang.

The government’s attempts at legislating on disinformation and hate speech have not been without setbacks. In 2018, the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act, 2018 was adopted, imposing punitive fines and prison terms on the publication of false information and false, misleading and fictitious data. Unfortunately, these provisions have been unjustly used to target bloggers for exposing corruption or seeking state accountability. 

A case by the Bloggers Association of Kenya challenging the constitutionality of the law remains pending an appeal of the decision by the High Court in February 2020 allowing the enforcement of the law. Section 13 of the National Cohesion and Integration Act constricts the definition of hate speech to “ethnic hatred” and fails to capture the constitutional limitations under Article 31, which include propaganda for war, incitement to violence, hate speech, and advocacy of hatred. This means various hate speech content remains lawful in the absence of a clear criminal prohibition.

Moreover, the NCIC, which was formed following the 2007 post-election violence, has been plagued by numerous challenges in its attempt to fight hate and promote peace and national cohesion. The commission for most of its active life has been underfunded, thus hindering its ability and capacity to monitor hate speech online, investigate incidents and conduct public awareness and engagements. Further, political interference with its work means that it has been incapable of enforcing the law to get successful convictions of offenders who are mostly the political elite. 

More importantly, successive government administrations have failed to implement the recommendations of the Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (TJRC) report to address the drivers of hate and disinformation. The report identified those drivers as Kenya’s historical inter-ethnic tensions that are systemic and deep-rooted in its social, cultural, religious, economic and political fabric. Disinformation and hate speech in Kenya thrive on these unresolved historical tensions around political ideology, ethnicity, economics, and demography.  

Today, a majority of social media users in Kenya are aware of and fuel hate speech and disinformation on social media. To some, it is all fun and games, as they assume no feelings get hurt. To many, however, disinformation triggers pain, fear, tension and hate. Last year, a local politician advised Kenyans to put matters of politics in their lungs, not their hearts. This attitude is also a problem, as such views may breed a level of acceptance and normalisation of disinformation and hate speech in the country by encouraging people to grow a ‘thick skin’ instead of objectively addressing the root causes of the vice. People, including Kenyans, are known to act on their feelings. As we have seen in neighbouring countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Sudan, hate speech and disinformation can drive violence with devastating consequences. 

The failure to resolve Kenya’s underlying tensions means the country risks further social division and fragmentation of society as well as diminished progress due to a continuation of governance policies and practices that further entrench discrimination and exclusion in accessing opportunities, resources and essential services. The hate that arises from the effects of such policies and practices, and the disinformation deployed to justify and perpetuate them, affects people’s mental health and emotional well-being. Moreover, they cement long-held historical fears, suspicions and animosity that continue to undermine the ability of Kenyans to trust each other or the government and could inhibit the willingness of sections of the public to cooperate in nation-building for the common good. 

Be that as it may, there are some promising efforts, such as the recently launched local coalition on freedom of expression and content moderation and the draft guidelines for regulating digital platforms spearheaded by UNESCO that seek to promote engagement and tackle content that potentially damages human rights and democracy. The multistakeholder coalition is an initiative of UNESCO and ARTICLE 19 that aims to bridge the gap between local stakeholders and social media companies and to improve content moderation practices, including supporting regulatory reform, building the capacity of state and non-state actors, and raising awareness on the ethical use of digital platforms. While these twin initiatives are new and largely untested, they present an opportunity to ensure more rights-respecting content moderation practices, the application of common norms based on human rights standards and stronger multistakeholder engagement in the content moderation process.

Finally, it may be easy to blame social media companies for the weaknesses in their content moderation systems, and by all means they need to be held to account. However, better algorithms alone cannot fix our society or our social norms. Kenyans must wake up and smell the coffee. Leaders need to drop the divisive acts and work together with stakeholders and citizens to address historical tensions and foster a culture of inclusion, tolerance, respect and understanding. While at it, they should promote responsible social media use, fact-checking, and media literacy in order to counter the negative impact of hate speech and disinformation and ultimately build a more just, harmonious, democratic and equitable society.

10Nov

Countering Digital Authoritarianism in Africa

Author CIPESA Posted on

By Apolo Kakaire |

The Internet which is viewed as the panacea for democracy, participation and inclusion is increasingly becoming a tool of repression deployed by regimes across the world to stifle rights and voice.  Africa, a continent already replete with poor democratic credentials and practices seems to be rapidly catching up on the new ‘epidemic’- digital authoritarianism.

The use of technology tactics to advance repressive political interests has come to be  referred to as digital authoritarianism. However, the tactics employed by authoritarian regimes have also been deployed by democratic states for purposes of surveillance, spread of misinformation, disinformation, and the disruption of civic and political participation under the pretext of fighting cybercrime, and in the interest of protecting national security, and maintaining public order.

Big technology companies are key drivers of digital authoritarianism through the creation, innovation and supply of repressive technology and related support. Moreover, political parties, interest groups, and smaller private companies have lapped it up too, developing and using tools and strategies of digital authoritarianism.

Digital authoritarianism is a great case study in understanding and appreciating the impact of technology on human rights. While laws legalising surveillance and interception of communications, and widespread data collection and processing may not be a problem in themselves, it is the ambiguity often present within those laws that give governments wide latitude of interpretation to facilitate the rights abuse that is a growing challenge.

At the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa 2022 (FIFAfrica22), Global Voices Advox, shared findings from the Unfreedom Monitor– a project exploring the political and social context that fuels the emergence of digital authoritarianism in 17 countries. They hosted a panel discussion in which project researchers from India, Nigeria, Sudan and Zimbabwe presented the project findings on the connections between political contexts, analogue rights, and the growing use of digital communications technology to advance authoritarian governance.

The findings paint a grim picture for  freedom of the media, expression, and democracy in general. In Zimbabwe for instance, the Unfreedom Monitor report notes that; “the press walks a precarious line between national security and the professional obligation to report truthfully” on issues that happen in the country. It is an observation that is replicated in the mapping conducted in Morocco, Egypt, and Tanzania 

In Sudan, where internet censorship, bad laws and repressed liberties and network disruptions are commonplace, Khattab Hamad noted that the contours and motives of digital authoritarianism include fear of losing power, protecting the existence of regional or international alliances, and geopolitical motives protecting private and family interests. He added that terrorism and support for terrorist groups was another motive for authoritarianism in the country. 

In Tanzania, researchers found that often, laws are enacted as precursors to enable various methods of digital authoritarianism. For example, the Cybercrime Act which was hurriedly enacted just months before the October 2015 elections. “There were many other such laws, including the amendments to the Non-Governmental Orgnaisations (NGO) Act, that saw NGOs being deregistered and control on them tightened in the lead up to the 2020 elections”, they revealed.

In Uganda, network disruptions in the run up to and during recent elections is another example of digital authoritarianism. “Sometimes the internet is restored after elections. So, the question is what exactly is the purpose? What are you hiding? Why do you deny your people access to information? Internet shutdowns also question the credibility of elections”, said Felicia Anthonio of Access Now. She added that network disruptions affect engagement between voters and political candidates, in addition to limiting  electoral oversight and monitoring by human rights activists and election observers. 

As part of the Unfreedom Monitor project, Global Voices Advox has established a publicly available database on digital authoritarianism to support advocacy in light of the “urgency of a fast deteriorating situation”, said Sindhuri Nandhakumar, a researcher  with the project. 

While applauding the research and database in supporting evidence-based advocacy, digital rights activists at FIFAfrica22 noted that given the behaviour of authoritarian regimes, advocacy at the national level may be met with a lot of resistance. As such, more engagement was called for  through special mandates and periodic human rights review mechanisms at the African Union (AU) and the United Nations Human Rights Council.   

“Advocacy [against digital authoritarianism] at national level will be difficult. Positive results could be registered through Special rapporteurs at the AU and states through the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), towards securing accountability”, said Arsene Tungali from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

For African digital rights activists, the Global Voices Advox research and database unravels new  avenues for collaborative advocacy and transnational opportunities for interventions to stem this spread of digital authoritarianism. The findings however also point at the need for a concerted and robust response to its growing traction.

As elections in Africa remain a major flashing point for digital authoritarianism as all manner of manipulation of voters, narratives, even results abound, it remains a key area of transnational cooperation. Ahead of the elections in Zimbabwe, slated for July-August 2023, Advox will come up with tips on awareness raising on voter rights and the role of technology in elections. Zimbabwe provides a good opportunity to pilot, learn and perhaps adopt some interventions to counter this behemoth.

09Sep

Confronting the Challenges to Journalism in the Digital Age

Author CIPESA Posted on

By Edrine Wanayama |

Across the world, journalists face daily affronts physically and online for the work they do. Although the proliferation of technology has come with benefits for the practice of journalism, it has also adversely affected the media landscape to the extent that in some countries journalism has come under siege under the digital era. 

Technology has served to enable major shifts in how journalism is practiced, in addition to enhancing freedom of expression and access to information in addition to  complementing the promotion of accountability and transparency. However,  negative aspects such as digital surveillance are endangering the practice of journalism. The use of sophisticated technologies by governments is fuelling rights violations as it is now easier to track, arrest, detain, persecute and prosecute media professionals whose content is deemed unacceptable to the authorities.

This year, World Press Freedom Day (WPFD) was commemorated under the theme ‘Journalism Under Siege’ and recognised  how recent developments in technological means of monitoring and surveillance impact journalism and freedom of expression.

Digitisation offers several  benefits for the journalism sector, including the pace at which content can be collected and shared across online platforms. However, the risks and harms that come with digitisation, such as the elimination of professional gatekeepers who also uphold journalistic ethics, fabrication of content, falsification of information, misinformation and disinformation, hate speech, and online harassment, have become major threats to the sector.  

While in the pre-Internet world, freedom of expression and privacy were thought to only interact when journalists reported on public figures in the name of the right to know, the rights have become increasingly interdependent. This linkage reflects digital business models and the development of new surveillance technologies and large-scale data collection and retention. The changes pose risks in terms of reprisals against media workers and their sources, thereby affecting the free exercise of journalism, UNESCO

Even though the digital space offers broad opportunities for the practice of the journalism profession, various  countries in Africa have taken systematic steps to limit the enjoyment of freedom in the digital space. Many states across the continent including Egypt, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe have enhanced their surveillance capacities including through enactment of enabling legislation which is often used against state critics and journalists.

Furthermore, mass data collection initiatives such as registration of persons for national identification documents, SIM card registration, voter registration and the creation of interlinked databases by the government for various services, have increased the precision with which state authorities can identify their targets. This is of particular concern for the media and their sources.s.

As such, at the WPFD commemoration in Uganda organised by the Uganda’s Media Sector Working Group (UMSWG) in conjunction with the African Centre for Media Excellence (ACME), the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), the Makerere University Department of Journalism and Communication, the Media Council of Uganda, Uganda Communications Commission, and the Uganda Human Rights Commission, attendees discussed the country’s shrinking digital space, surveillance, arrests and persecution amidst growing digitalisation practices across sectors and the population. 

These concerns were echoed at the Africa Media Convention held  in Arusha, Tanzania around the WPFD and organised by UNESCO and the East Africa Editors’ Guild. The convention discussions were largely informed by a research report by CIPESA and UNESCO on journalism under siege in the digital era. In turn, the discussions resulted in the  Arusha Declaration on Journalism Under Digital Siege, which reaffirms the importance of human rights and freedom of the press and states’ commitments to provide an enabling environment for freedom of expression and the press. 

Journalists should use technology responsibly to guard against counter productivity.  There should be deliberate efforts aimed at guarding against online vices such as disinformation and misinformation, false news and hate speech to ensure reporting events and stories is based on truth and objectivity. 

Similarly, states must take all measures to ensure their compliance with universally recognised human rights standards by repealing all laws, policies and practices that limit journalism practice. They should also progressively enact laws that promote digital rights and freedoms including those of journalists. 

Specifically, recommendations in the 2022 Arusha Declaration on the World Press Freedom Day should be adopted by states, media, civil society, technology companies and development partners  if the media sector is to become better and operate with minimal interruptions.

29Oct

Assessing the Effects of Covid-19 Misinformation Laws on Freedom of Expression

Author CIPESA Posted on

By Nashilongo Gervasius | 

As Africa’s most sought after digital rights conference dawned on its last day of bringing multitudes together, five panelists (an academic, a researcher, program managers and a digital rights specialist) converged and reflected on the effect that Covid-19 misinformation laws have had in Sub-Saharan Africa. The laws and regulations which were introduced as measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus, are generally viewed by scholars and activists as serving  to curtail freedom of expression. 

At the peak of the pandemic, 110 countries around the world were reported by the International Center for Not-for -Profit Law (ICNL) to have adopted emergency declarations or laws that carried fines as heavy as USD 46,000 (Kenya), USD 10,000 (Zimbabwe), and 10 years in prison (Burkina Faso) for contravening their provisions. Closely related to digital rights, such laws also applied to social media engagement and communications, with some prohibiting publication of “any statement through any medium including social media, with the intent to deceive,” in South Africa.

The notoriety of such laws made them the focus of the State of Internet Freedom in Africa 2020 Report. Similarly, a report by the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) on the State of Press Freedom in Southern Africa 2019-2020 also highlighted the challenges posed by these laws on top of the burden brought about by the pandemic itself. The MISA report indicated that the “landscape and operational environment for the media in Southern Africa has been  characterised  by  upheavals,  accentuated  by the Covid-19 pandemic and the advent of the digital  age,  which  have  threatened  the  viability  and sustainability of the media”. The report goes on to highlight attacks,  harassment  and  assault  of  journalists  and  in  some  cases  raiding  of  media  houses in the region. 

Why focus on the laws and regulations two years later? 

The Covid-19 misinformation laws are still in place even when other Covid-19 related restrictions have been eased in some countries. Worryingly, governments in the region have not opened any discussion regarding the timeframes around repealing the laws. 

Accordingly, panelists at the Forum on Internet Freedom in Africa (FIFAfrica) 2021 session on Covid-19 Misinformation Legislation in Southern Africa vs Freedom of Expression, deliberated on  the danger that these laws continue to pose to access to information and freedom of expression. Panelists demanded an urgent need for the Covid-19 misinformation laws to be repealed, arguing that the likelihood that governments will use them to stifle citizens rights and public participation, especially during election periods, is very high.  

Further, the panel noted the limited documentation of cases of violation of rights in the countries where these laws are effected, while agreeing that, in some instances, restrictions have affected media coverage of cases.

What effects do these laws have?

The Covid-19 misinformation laws are a danger to democracy and they contravene the right to access information. Using Tanzania as an example, the panel reflected on the chaos that ensued in that country due to Covid-19 denialism that saw the government stop publishing data on coronavirus diseases cases.

In other countries like Zimbabwe, where the Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act already criminalised the publication of false statements, it was unclear why the government introduced additional restrictions on false information related to Covid-19 lockdown enforcement, making the move appear to be part of a sinister agenda. Indeed, the media fell victim to the regulations, with an estimated 52 cases of violations against practitioners reported during 2020. As one of the panelists noted, “Many people were arrested without a clear cause, because people did not understand these laws well.”

In regards to the extent of the negative effects of the Covid-19 laws on freedom of expression, it was noted that the media in some countries was no longer asking government uncomfortable questions, especially those seeking accountability for expenditure on containing the pandemic. This demonstrated  that these laws are not helping journalists to do their job fairly and independently; instead, in some cases they have restricted themselves to report on mundane issues such as numbers of Covid-19 cases and vaccination figures.

The panel discussion reiterated that, in such instances, journalists were no longer performing their role of a watchdog, but had turned into “mere megaphones that repeated what government officials said”. This had undermined investigative journalism and denied citizens access to balanced and diverse information.  As a panelist aptly observed: “These laws have disorganised journalism, which is double negative given that traditional media are competing with digital platforms that are destroying newspapers and television.” 

Can such laws deter misinformation?

There seems to be  general consensus that these laws are not enough in dealing with the spread of misinformation. This calls for revisiting these laws and taking other measures, such as engaging  digital platforms to do more in combating misinformation. Further, the panel agreed that there is a need to educate the public to strengthen their digital literacy skills so that they can question the information they receive rather than consuming and sharing whatever information comes their way. 

The urgency of getting the misinformation legislation repealed was illuminated by the realisation that, in several cases where individuals have been arrested under these laws, the adverse effect  of the false information could not be demonstrated, and it was often not possible to verify who produced the information in question. The discussion recommended a coordinated regional approach to advocate for the repeal of these laws.

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