Hashtags, memes, emails, songs... Kenyans are revolutionising online protest with no sign of slowing down

People are still protesting; these hashtags are being used just as #RejectFinanceBill and #DrainTheSwamp were during the street demonstrations last June and July against the 2024 Finance Bill and President William Ruto’s government overall.

There have been several physical marches since, such as the protest against femicide and the abduction of government critics.

Still, none has seen a turnout as mid-last year’s demos, also purely mobilised online, during which over 60 people were killed as police used excessive force to tackle crowds.

About six months since the last major street demonstration, the digital-savvy youth who braved tear gas, police batons, water cannons and arbitrary arrests, seem to have taken much of the revolution online and it is just as fierce and effective.

Online, they heavily and without fear, criticise Ruto and his government, scrutinise politicians’ pronouncements, and voice their opinions directly to the leaders by tagging their accounts.

Using hashtags, posts, videos, slogans, nicknames, memes and social media tagging, Kenyans are redefining protests in the digital age and it seems to be catching the attention for whom the message is intended, just as the street demos did.

In their call for reduced taxation, Kenyans nicknamed Ruto ‘Zakayo’, for instance, which is Swahili for the biblical greedy tax collector Zacchaeus who is said to have climbed a tree to see Jesus.

They called for the President to ‘shuka’ (climb down). Later, Ruto yielded and backed down on the proposed taxes in the unpopular bill amid the deadly protests.

Kenyans crowdfunded on social media to offset medical bills for those injured in the protests and burial costs for those killed in the demos – over Ksh.29 million is reported to have been raised.

In the spirit of holding the government accountable, online civic education emerged as youth educated each other on policy and the constitution and shared links to resource materials.

On TikTok, they translated the Finance Bill into local languages and shared custom ChatGPT tools trained to answer questions about anything, from proposed laws to Kenyan politicians who have been implicated in corrupt cases.

During all this, as Kenyan police were being criticised for brutalising peaceful protesters and abduction cases were increasing, Kenyans made sure the world knew; they tagged bodies like the United Nations and the International Criminal Court on social media.

Even after the street demos were forcefully clamped down by government operatives, digital protests such as the online campaign #AdaniMustGo continued until Ruto announced in November his government was dropping the multi-billion-shilling airport and power supply deals it entered with the controversial Indian company Adani Group after its owner, Gautam Adani, was indicted for fraud in the United States.

It is now increasingly common for government officials to issue follow-up and ‘clarification’ statements on public interest issues amid online debate as Kenyans dig up information and flag inconsistencies.

A case in point is in December when Ruto said Kenya paid Ksh.500 million for its bid to host the Grammy Awards Africa Academy Centre.

The controversy it sparked online saw his then-Cabinet Secretary for Youth, Creative Economy and Sports, Kipchumba Murkomen, issue a statement detailing the deal. (He placed the figure at Ksh.323 million.)

Some online users even said they wrote to the U.S. Recording Academy over the matter.

In November, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) invited public nominations for the ‘Corrupt Person of the Year’ title.

While he lost the title to deposed Syrian ex-President Bashar Al-Assad, the global network of investigative journalists said Ruto got “the most public nominations in OCCRP history — over 40,000.”

"Kenyans called out corruption, youth unemployment, and a contentious finance bill. Their extraordinary outpouring and demands for accountability were remarkable,” OCCRP said.

Similarly, in December, after the obscure Northwestern Christian University-Kenya conferred Kapseret MP Oscar Sudi with an honorary doctorate in leadership, giving Sudi the ‘Engineer’ title in the certificate, it caused an online storm.

Kenyans wrote to the Engineering Board of Kenya (EBK), which then directed the private college to immediately recall the certificate, citing an unauthorised use of the title.

Shakira Wafula, one of the youths vocal on social media who was also at the frontlines in last year’s demos, says what the young Kenyans are doing is essentially “looking for alternatives on how to express our discontent with the government and holding it accountable without risking our health and safety.”

Ms Wafula, Vice-chair of the civic education movement Kikao, told Citizen Digital in an interview that the brutality youth – most of who it was their first time attending a protest – experienced from security forces last year is behind the lull in physical demos as youth use the internet to call for change.

“I was hit by a tear gas canister. Thankfully, my injuries were not major but being a part of it gave us a sense of what’s at stake at a personal level,” she says.

After retiring ‘Zakayo’ with the fall of the finance bill, Kenyans branded Ruto 'Kasongo' from the popular song by the Congolese Rhumba band Super Orchestra Mazembe, as mimicry of his perceived missteps.

The tag blew up further after popular online cartoonist Gideon Kibet, alias Kibet Bull, made illustrations depicting silhouettes of Ruto (as ‘Kasongo’).

Many deemed the viral memes the main reason for his December abduction by perceived government agents alongside other youth who had been criticising Ruto and his government, some even sharing AI-generated photos of the President in a casket.

As painful as these abductions might be, some of the youth say it is a sign the government is taking notice of their pushback just like the street demos, try as Ruto might to convince everyone that he is indifferent to the nicknames and even dance to the ‘Kasongo’ song at a state dinner.

“They are effective; otherwise, the government wouldn’t keep talking about it. They are now stooping as low as abducting us, which shows we are being heard,” says Wafula.

Recently, Ruto and top officials in his administration have also warned of what they call social media misuse.

In his New Year’s address, which he gave amid uncertainty over the whereabouts of the seven young men abducted in December, Ruto said “Every freedom has its limits and that public safety and order must always supersede the desire for unchecked liberty.”

“Today it will be politicians, tomorrow your parents and friends, and soon, you will begin killing people… let us be careful so we don’t build a generation that is going to self-destruct,” Ruto told a rally in Kapseret, a statement whose irony is not lost on the youth he was directing his warning to.

“They are complaining about images, yet they are putting real human beings in real coffins?” Wafula posed.

Following last week’s announcement of the King and Queen of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander and Máxima’s State visit to Kenya in March, Kenyans online have been urging the Dutch royals to cancel their trip.

#CancelStateVisit has been trending on X while other users have reported writing emails to the Dutch government, urging the royals to reconsider the visit over what they call governance issues with Ruto’s administration such as human rights abuses.

The Dutch Foreign Affairs ministry this week confirmed receiving over 300 e-mails from Kenyans.

It however insisted the visit was still on, saying it presents an opportunity to discuss the alleged violations by Ruto's government.

Wafula says the shift to online protests does not mean Kenyan youth are done with the streets.

“While we wish not to be on the streets, the government forces us to. I think there is a limit to what we can achieve through online campaigns and President Ruto has shown us protests is the language they understand best,” she says.

In the meantime, Wafula says, “We will continue with the vigilance and call out politicians’ wrongs like we do when we show up with our placards.”

Only that this way, there will be no tear gas.