NASA must hire their own 36 bloggers or risk drowning in fake news
In October 2015 when the government was facing backlash emanating from the failure to bring to book those who had been implicated in corruption, compounded by the ever increasing corruption scandals like the Eurobond that couldn’t die down, Jubilee decided to hire some 36 bloggers. The work of the bloggers was simple – dictate the online narrative by hook or crook – and they have tried to live to their calling to date.
In the wake of the 2017 general elections’ campaign period, the 36 bloggers have gone over drive, ensuring that both pro Jubilee and anti NASA messages on social media trend. This started by the launch of the delivery.go.ke portal where Kenyans can visit to find out the development projects Jubilee claims to have rolled out and are at different stages of completion. By the time the official campaign period arrived, the bloggers had already gathered their political topics, most of which were meant to taint Raila as a dangerous human being who, if elected, will disintegrate the fabric of Kenya’s cohesion. Up to date, at least three anti Raila messages have been successfully delivered. The messages include:
- That Raila intends to revive the ICC cases against UhuRuto once elected
- That Raila will evict white settlers at Laikipia and distribute the land to locals, similar to what Robert Mugabe did in Zimbabwe, and
- That Raila has told Kajiado residents to evict non-locals from Kajiado.
As the campaigns progress, we can expect these propaganda messages to escalate, and if the comments in social media on the very topics are to be taken seriously, then we can conclude that many Kenyans are buying into the propaganda. Although an argument that those buying into the propaganda are already Jubilee supporters, it should be noted that there are a number of Raila leaning Kenyans who were leaning due to specific beliefs, beliefs that are being washed out by the propaganda, and if there are no blow by blow on time response to the propaganda, then these Raila leaning supporters are likely to be turned to Jubilee.
It is on the realization that Raila leaning voters can easily be turned to Jubilee that calls for the need for NASA to also hire their version of 36 bloggers – who can be as may as 36 or even as few as 16. The work of the NASA’s 36 bloggers would be three fold:
- To promptly counter attack any propaganda by Jubilee. The counter attack must be swift, thorough, and massive to effectively deal a death blow to the propaganda, every single time – Although many believe that when a topic has gone through its news cycle those who read it forget, subtly the content of the news makes many develop a particular world view – a world view that may influence an individual’s political leaning.
- To spread NASA’s own propaganda – In politics, the game is “eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise”. Exodus 21:24-25.
- To popularize and maintain the popularity of NASA’s own agenda. NASA is due to launch their manifesto on June 27th, and after the launch, we’ll expect the agenda set by the manifesto to be the talking points in social every single moment from the date of the launch up until after the voting is complete.
Many will agree that NASA indeed needs to hire their own version of the 36 bloggers, but word reached me over the weekend from a NASA insider to the effect that NASA is not interested in employing bloggers. According to the insider, the few NASA leaning bloggers like DIKEMBE DISEMBE, ItsMutai, and Cyprian Nyakundi on Twitter and Dorcas Sarkozy, Gabriel Oguda, Ephraim Njenga and Faith Mutembei on Facebook are already doing a great job in spreading NASA agenda on social media. This may be true, but NASA must know that volunteers or people who speak their minds without any sense of duty to the coalition are not obligated to blog. For NASA to direct the social media discussions, they must have a number of these bloggers on their pay roll to effectively demand prompt delivery of messages.
