There is nothing worse than a meaningless report and this
week the NCIC take the cake for producing the most pointless findings ever to
be discovered off social media. The NCIC
have proudly announced that Kenyans have turned to coded language ahead of the
polls, codes which may or may not have negative connotations and may or may not
be hate speech and may lead to such codes becoming used by future generations.
Babbling and baffling? Of course! But I know where the problem is.
NCIC while trolling social media came across Generation
XAXA. Believe me, even the lackluster anthropologist Kibunjia and his team of
online prefects were certainly discombobulated by Generation XAXA and their “coded”
language. It takes the bravest soul to even try and understand a sentence
produced by a member of this generation. These young ones are believed to be in
their late teens and early 20s, in college and armed with unlimited facebook
courtesy of our mobile phone service providers.
Generation XAXA, so dubbed because of their use of the
letter X to replace S, are not, as Mzalendo Kibunjia and the NCIC believe, hate mongers, though they certainly have
decimated the English and swahili languages in a hateful and malicious manner.
Take this statement for example, “Tnx 2o8 Goni”. No, it’s not code for “I hate a
certain ethnic community” this means, “Thanks.
Tuonane jioni.” (Thanks. Let’s see each other in the evening).
With whole social forums filled with such “codes” from Generation XAXA it’s no wonder that the NCIC were alarmed that the language
being used could or could not be hate speech.
Of course really the blame for such utter confusion lies
with a body that has too much money and too few brain cells between them such
that they can actually undertake to administrate or is it prefect and monitor
social media.
Mark Zuckerberg and his fine team of experts already created the “report
group/page” function, specificly installed to curb hate pages, groups and
offensive material online. Unlike the NCIC, once a page is reported a (real)
analysis is made of content and feedback is given within 24 hours. Also, anyone
will a passable understanding of how social media works will note the “leave
group" button, and also the “block” option. In short. NCIC decided to waste 3
months doing what face book is already doing.
Let’s face some real facts about NCIC. Firstly, they have no
idea what hate speech means. Ok, who would expect an abysmal anthropologist to
understand a legal term anyway? Secondly they are great at utilizing public
funds in pointless endeavors while real hate and fear mongers take to the
airwaves daily, preaching all kinds of ethnic and tribal drivel. I think Mzalendo
Kibunjia has perfected the art of being not just deaf but certainly dumb in this
regard.
Social media is a preserve of urban youth, aged between 16
and 35. This forms the greater population online. So it begs the question of
how NCIC found 1,233 users of social media from a total of 39 counties a
suitable sample to conclude that indeed, codes were being used and possibly,
maybe, could be, might be for negative reasons but also maybe for positive reasons.
I think the only thing that NCIC should be congratulated for
is noting that there is indeed a horrific special language online that is
perpetuated by Generation XAXA that needs urgent and immediate attention. I
dare say they may be right in arresting the twit who conjured up “Tnx 2o8 Goni”.
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