Every time a Kenyan opens TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram or X, an invisible decision is being made: what should appear next?
It may look like a simple scroll, but behind every recommended video, trending topic and suggested account are systems designed to predict what will keep a user watching, clicking, sharing or commenting. The result is a new kind of power one that does not necessarily belong to governments or traditional media houses, but to the platforms and algorithms that increasingly determine what information reaches the public.
That power is becoming particularly important in Kenya as the country moves toward the 2027 General Election.
A recent Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) study found that influencers, algorithms and artificial intelligence are already changing Kenya's political information environment. The study monitored Facebook, TikTok and YouTube between January and March 2026 and found that political influence is increasingly shifting from institutions to personalities.
This is not simply a question of whether Kenyans are spending too much time online. It is a question of who gets to shape the information environment in which Kenyans make decisions.
The creator is becoming the newsroom
Kenya's traditional newsrooms no longer have an exclusive claim on public attention.
The 2026 Reuters Institute Digital News Report found that social media is now central to Kenya's news ecosystem, with TikTok and YouTube becoming important entry points to news and current affairs, especially among younger audiences. The report also noted the growing influence of creators, activists and digital personalities who interpret events for large online audiences.
UNESCO's 2026 research on Kenya's digital-content industry provides an even more striking picture.
According to the study, 58% of consumers regularly pay attention to digital creators and influencers, compared with 34% who regularly focus on traditional news brands and journalists. Yet 87.1% of surveyed creators had never received Media and Information Literacy training, while 56.3% had no journalism background.
That creates a complicated new information ecosystem.
A creator does not necessarily need a newsroom, editor, fact-checker or journalism degree to reach hundreds of thousands of Kenyans. A smartphone, internet connection and a compelling personality can be enough.
The algorithm then determines how far that content travels.
When controversy becomes a distribution strategy
The problem is that algorithms generally respond to audience behaviour, not necessarily journalistic standards.
Content that generates strong reactions can attract more engagement. Anger, humour, fear, controversy and political loyalty can therefore become powerful drivers of visibility.
KICTANet's research found examples of political claims moving through different platforms in stages: a fabricated claim could appear on Facebook, gain momentum on TikTok and later become the subject of discussion on YouTube or podcasts. Repetition could then give an unverified claim the appearance of established fact.
One documented example involved a fabricated Standard newspaper article about divisions within the opposition. Fact-checkers established that the article had never appeared on The Standard's website or official social-media accounts.
This demonstrates the real danger.
The problem is no longer simply fake news.
It is the combination of fabrication, algorithmic amplification and repetition.
A false story that reaches 50 people is misinformation. A false story that is repeatedly recommended, reposted, discussed and transformed into short videos can become something much more powerful: a competing version of reality.
AI is making the problem harder
Artificial intelligence is adding another layer.
On October 5, Amnesty International Kenya reported on findings from Anthropic's September 2026 misuse report concerning an operation that allegedly used AI to generate batches of political social-media posts designed to appear like organic grassroots commentary ahead of Kenya's 2027 election. Anthropic said the posts were generated in batches of 50 and designed to avoid appearing coordinated.
Importantly, Anthropic did not identify evidence linking Energy Cabinet Secretary Opiyo Wandayi or his ministry to the operation, and Wandayi publicly denied authorising or participating in such a campaign.
The significance therefore lies not in assigning responsibility to a particular politician, but in what the technology demonstrates.
AI can potentially make it cheaper and faster to produce large quantities of apparently authentic online political commentary.
That means the next information battle may not simply involve politicians competing for votes. It could involve networks of humans and automated systems competing to influence what citizens believe is popular, legitimate or true.
Kenya is beginning to confront the problem
Regulators are increasingly recognising that the digital environment cannot be left entirely to the platforms themselves.
This week, regional ICT regulators have gathered in Nairobi for the Policy and Regulation Institutional Strengthening Programme, with discussions covering the rapidly changing digital economy and the regulatory challenges created by artificial intelligence, digital platforms and next-generation networks.
Kenya has also been working with UNESCO, the Communications Authority and other stakeholders on rights-based digital governance, including responses to AI-enabled disinformation, cybercrime and other online harms.
Meanwhile, platforms themselves are exercising enormous moderation power.
TikTok reported removing 884,591 videos in Kenya during the first quarter of 2026 for violating its community guidelines. The company said 99.7% of those videos were proactively removed before being reported and that 96.3% were removed within 24 hours.
That statistic reveals another side of the algorithmic power question.
Platforms do not merely decide what users see.
Through moderation systems, they can also determine what disappears.
So, who controls what Kenyans see?
The answer is increasingly complicated.
Governments regulate. Platforms design algorithms. Creators produce content. Journalists verify information. Advertisers fund attention. Users interact with the system and their behaviour feeds the algorithms that determine what appears next.
Power is therefore distributed across an entire digital ecosystem.
But the biggest challenge is transparency.
Most users do not know precisely why one political video reaches their feed while another remains invisible. They may not know whether a trending topic represents genuine public interest, coordinated engagement or simply an algorithmically amplified controversy.
That is why Kenya's debate over digital technology must move beyond internet access.
The next question is information power.
As artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated and creators become increasingly influential, digital literacy will become as important as connectivity. Citizens need to understand not only how to use social platforms, but also how those platforms shape what they see.
For journalists, the responsibility is even greater.
The newsroom of the future will not compete only with another newsroom. It will compete with influencers, algorithms, podcasts, AI-generated content and millions of individual creators.
The journalist's greatest advantage will therefore not be speed alone.
It will be verification, context and trust.
The algorithm may decide what appears on a screen.
But society must still decide what deserves to be believed.
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