KICA Amendment: Regulation of Social Media

Good morning Listers,

As GG had alerted us last week, there is a bill before the National
Assembly that seeks to amend the Kenya Information and Communication Act by
including a part on Regulation of Social Media.

I will lead us on a discussion on this Bill.

Between 2016 to date, we have seen many attempts to regulate social media
conduct. Interestingly, one such attempt, the Computer Misuse and
Cybercrimes Act, where many of its sections on regulation of social media,
have been suspended is coming up for hearing today. Now we tackle yet
another attempt to ‘fix’ social media.

To start with, I will post the definitions proposed in the bill of the word
‘social media platform’ and ‘blogging’:

\”*blogging\” means collecting, writing, editing and presenting of news or
news articles in social media platforms or in the internet;*

*\”social media platforms\” includes online publishing and discussion, media
sharing, blogging, social networking, document and data sharing
repositories, social media applications, social bookmarking and widgets;*

What are your initial thoughts? What ‘problem’ is Hon. Injendi trying to
fix with this bill? Who will fall under those definitions? Contributions
are welcome.