A an oppressive censorship bill has been tabled in the Kenyan parliament targeting social media group admins and bloggers. MP Malulu Injendi has tabled The Kenya Information and Communication (Amendment) Bill 2019 which specifically targets
group admins, who will be used to police the kind of content shared in their groups. The Bill defines social media platforms to include online publishing and discussion, media sharing, blogging, social networking, document and data sharing
repositories, social media applications, social bookmarking and widgets. The bill reads; The new part will introduce new sections to the Act on licensing of social media platforms, sharing of information by a licensed person, creates obligations
to social media users, registration of bloggers and seeks to give responsibility to the Kenyan Communications Authority (CA) to develop a bloggers' code of conduct in consultation with bloggers. The Communications Authority will
maintain a registry of all bloggers and develop censorship rules for bloggers. The proposed bill means that all group admins on any social platform will be required to get authorisation from CA before they can open such groups. The bill also
states that admins should monitor content shared in their groups and remove any member that posts inappropriate content. The admins are also required to ensure all their members are over 18 years old. Group admins will also be required to have a physical
address and keep a record of the group members.
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