Technology and Mobilities in Africa Seminar Series: Social Media Warfare and Kenya’s Conflict with Al Shabaab in Somalia

Tom Molony will talk about his most recent paper, which explores Kenyan citizens’ right to know details about sensitive security-related information in the context of a new era of social media warfare. It considers the public communications response to Al Shabaab’s January 2016 attack on Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) personnel in El Adde, Somalia, and then to a very similar attack in Kulbiyow almost exactly a year later. Drawing on Twitter posts, an official account of Kenya’s military activities in Somalia, and on ‘offline’ methods of qualitative data collection, the paper offers explanations as to why the KDF did not provide real-time updates about the El Adde attack, but did provide information about the assault in Kulbiyow.