Kenya’s 2027 General Election may still be two years away, but the battle for influence is already well underway — not in rallies or party offices, but across social media platforms, encrypted networks and algorithm-driven feeds.
Throughout 2025, a surge of coordinated disinformation campaigns has targeted Kenyan politicians, ethnic communities, civil society organisations and the media. The campaigns rely on a familiar digital playbook: fake documents, recycled hashtags, AI-generated media and coordinated amplification across platforms. What is new is their scale, sophistication and clear intent to reshape electoral narratives long before voters head to the ballot.
An analysis of Kenya’s digital ecosystem by Trust Lab, a European Union-funded project implemented by DW Akademie, Code For Africa and Siasa Place, paints a troubling picture. Researchers identified 17 major influence operations in 2025 alone, many of them linked through overlapping accounts and shared messaging infrastructure — a strong indicator of organised networks rather than organic online debate.
From propaganda to precision attacks
According to the report, Kenya’s disinformation landscape has evolved rapidly. Earlier cycles were dominated by broad political messaging and partisan propaganda. In 2025, the tactics shifted toward precision targeting — campaigns designed to damage specific leaders, fracture ethnic voting blocs and delegitimise institutions.
Social media platform X emerged as the primary battleground, though campaigns increasingly spilled over to Facebook and other networks, taking advantage of weaker content moderation and different audience demographics.
Ethnicity featured prominently. Several campaigns focused on the Mt Kenya region, framing the political influence of the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru (GEMA) communities as both declining and destabilising — a narrative intended to weaken collective political identity ahead of the next election cycle.
Hashtags as political weapons
One of the most visible operations, the #SmallVotesBigDamage campaign, ran between June 5 and June 9, 2025. It generated 6,172 mentions and more than 163,000 views, pushing the idea that Kenya’s traditional “tyranny of numbers” — where larger ethnic blocs shape electoral outcomes — was no longer relevant.
To bolster the narrative, campaign actors circulated forged documents designed to look credible. These included a fake internal memo attributed to the Democracy for the Citizens Party (DCP), warning of the “disintegration” of the GEMA bloc, and a fabricated technical note falsely linked to the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), claiming voter influence had shifted to minority counties with high turnout.
The documents were repeatedly shared, screenshotted and reposted, exploiting a common platform weakness: once false content gains traction, corrections rarely reach the same audiences.
Targeting individuals, not just regions
Disinformation efforts also zeroed in on specific political figures, most notably former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua.
A related campaign that amassed over 113,000 views accused Mr Gachagua and his allies — Nyandarua Senator John Methu Muhia, Githunguri MP Gathoni Wamuchomba and Kiambu Senator Karungo Paul Thang’wa — of deliberately isolating the Mt Kenya region from the rest of the country for personal political gain.
At the same time, the #MukimoMafia campaign (5,867 mentions) promoted claims that “Itungati” extremists were planning to secede the Mt Kenya region from Kenya. Trust Lab found no evidence to support the allegations, but the narrative gained traction through repetition and emotional framing.
Fake media and the erosion of trust
Beyond targeting politicians, the campaigns also sought to undermine trust in journalism itself.
Researchers documented the circulation of falsified newspaper front pages, designed to look like legitimate mainstream publications, linking Mr Gachagua to a fictional militia group. The tactic mirrors global disinformation trends, where attackers simultaneously discredit political actors and the media meant to scrutinise them.
By accusing newsrooms of bias, incompetence or foreign influence, these campaigns weaken the public’s ability to distinguish verified reporting from manipulated content — a critical vulnerability in election periods.
Protests reframed through coordinated narratives
When anti-government protests erupted in June 2025, digital influence networks moved quickly to control the narrative.
The #TheLordOfViolence campaign, active between June 25 and July 8, generated 4,360 mentions and more than 153,000 views, portraying Mt Kenya politicians as orchestrators of nationwide unrest rather than responding to genuine public grievances.
Trust Lab found that 39 accounts involved in this campaign were also active in #FinancersOfChaos, a parallel operation targeting civil society leaders, protest organisers and journalists. The same accounts, posting patterns and assets were reused — a hallmark of coordinated disinformation operations.
While X remained the main platform, the network expanded to Facebook, where posts under #FinancersOfChaos recorded 17,288 views and 338 interactions, amplifying claims that activists and media houses were foreign-funded agitators responsible for violence.
The rise of AI-powered smear campaigns
Perhaps the most alarming development documented in the report is the shift toward AI-driven personal attacks.
In late July 2025, the #DorcasBoyfriend hashtag targeted Dorcas Gachagua, the former deputy president’s wife. The campaign generated over 163,000 views, spreading unverified allegations alongside an AI-generated video designed to humiliate the family and damage Mr Gachagua’s public image.
This marked a clear escalation: the use of deepfakes and synthetic media not just to mislead, but to personally intimidate and discredit political actors through their private lives.
Regulation lags behind technology
Despite the growing threat, Kenya’s regulatory framework remains poorly equipped to deal with modern digital disinformation.
Existing laws — including the Computer Misuse and Cybercrimes Act and provisions under the Elections Act — were not designed for AI-generated media, coordinated influence networks or cross-platform manipulation. Enforcement is often reactive, fragmented and vulnerable to politicisation.
There is also limited transparency from platforms themselves. While companies like X and Meta publish global transparency reports, Kenya-specific data on coordinated inauthentic behaviour, takedowns and algorithmic amplification remains scarce.
Trust Lab warns that without clearer rules around political advertising, synthetic media disclosure and platform accountability, Kenya risks entering the 2027 election cycle with few safeguards against digital manipulation.
What needs to change before 2027
Experts argue that addressing the problem will require a multi-layered approach:
- Clear AI and deepfake regulation, including mandatory labelling of synthetic political content
- Stronger platform accountability, with local transparency obligations during election periods
- Independent election monitoring that includes digital ecosystems, not just polling stations
- Public digital literacy initiatives to help voters recognise manipulated content
“The weaponisation of ethnicity and personal life not only polarises the electorate,” the report concludes, “but also shifts attention away from substantive policy debates, leaving voters trapped in a landscape of manufactured outrage.”
As Kenya moves closer to 2027, the question is no longer whether digital disinformation will play a role — but whether regulators, platforms and institutions can respond quickly enough to prevent it from defining the election altogether.
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