A dive into Twitter analytics showed that between Tuesday 10 January and Saturday 21 January, the hashtag #NdegwaCollapsingSafaricom was mentioned 3,011 times on Twitter.
| CourtesyNews
Premium
Fact check: Are trending hashtags targeting big companies sponsored?
What you need to know:
- Since January this year, the Nation has attempted to track and analyse hashtags targeting businesses and find accounts being used to spread disinformation.
In the age of propaganda, misinformation and disinformation, social media has been used as a major tool to target and ruin the reputations of individuals and companies alike.
Since January this year, the Nation has attempted to track and analyse hashtags targeting companies and find accounts being used to spread disinformation.
Barely a week after Kenyans celebrated the New Year 2023, John Ngumi, the former chief executive of Safaricom PLC, resigned to pursue green energy development across Africa. He had served as chairman for just five months and was credited with playing a major role in securing Safricom's entry into Ethiopia.
Although his resignation took effect on December 22, 2022, the announcement of his departure from the telco triggered a hashtag that was weaponised against the telco's chief executive officer, Peter Ndegwa.
On January 10, the Twitter hashtag #NdegwaCollapsingSafaricom trended throughout the day before gradually dwindling in mentions from January 11 to January 21.
On Twitter, the first hashtag was mentioned around 7000 times between January 10 and January 13, with less than 1,500 mentions between January 13 and January 21, when the second hashtag started.
Immediately after its demise on the same day, January 21, the hashtag #SafaricomExposed rose.
The first hashtag, #NdegwaCollapsingSafaricom, is believed to have been triggered by a number of events that took place before 10 January, including John Ngumi's resignation and Safaricom's revelation on 9 January that it feared the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) would use the country's current tax laws to hit it with taxes if it split M-Pesa from its telecoms business.
The revelation, which came in an article in the Business Daily, stated that Safaricom planned to "seek tax exemptions from the government before proceeding with the plan to create a new group structure that will see M-Pesa and the telecoms business run as separate entities".
In the article, Safaricom CEO Peter Ndegwa said the telco would need tax waivers from the government to be able to move in this direction. On the day the hashtag was created, another article by the Business Daily had revealed that Safaricom was about to lose Sh2 billion by cutting call tariffs.
Safaricom related events before January 10:
The tariff cuts would cost the telco a loss of Sh2 billion in the financial year ending March 2023, after the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) slashed mobile termination rates by 41.4 per cent.
Another factor that may have triggered the hashtag was Safaricom being sued by a surgeon over new rules governing bonga points. The new rules stated that Safaricom users' loyalty points would expire if not redeemed within a certain period.
"Effective 1 January 2023, all non-redeemable Bonga points older than three years (December 2019) will expire and will not be redeemable," the updated terms and conditions read.
"This is a permanent implementation where accumulated Bonga points will now have a validity period to allow customers to redeem points," Safaricom's updated terms and conditions read.
The operator argued that it was wrong to force customers to redeem Bonga points, the total cost of which was Sh4.5 billion nationwide.
"The action will, among other things, lead to loss of public confidence and outright abuse of business dominance to the detriment of many poor Safaricom subscribers in the country," the surgeon argued.
On Twitter, there were also stories bordering on intellectual property rights, with claims that the company was implementing the ideas of innovative young people without involving or paying them.
A dive into Twitter analytics showed that between Tuesday 10 January and Saturday 21 January, the hashtag #NdegwaCollapsingSafaricom was mentioned 3,011 times on Twitter. There were 1,160 original tweets, with 317 unique accounts posting original tweets.
Original Tweets containing the hashtag: #NdegwaCollapsingSafaricom targeted the Safaricom CEO, with some users using similar text, showing a degree of coordination.
There were 1,821 retweeted tweets, with 690 unique accounts retweeting them.
Below are the top amplifiers. These are single accounts that retweeted the most.
Top accounts that posted original tweets in the network (`seeders`).
The main seeders, sources, include @its_kyulengao and @daisy_dariann. These are the two main accounts where the networks originated from.
As the attack on Safaricom died down, another hashtag emerged on 30 January, this time targeting Kameme Tv. The hashtags #MamaNginaSavekameme and #OkoaKamameme trended between 31 January and 06 February 2023, with 2,066 tweets extracted.
This time, the hashtag was driven by images of a letter purportedly from Mediamax journalists. The letter was purportedly addressed to the media company's CEO and board of directors regarding alleged misconduct by its CEO.
On 30 January 2023, the following accounts published the letters as original tweets.
The earliest post was made by the following account:
With 349,000 impressions on twitter, the hashtag was driven by 14 users, with the hashtag mentioned 24 times. It reached 161, 000 twitter users.
In the analysis, keywords that came up included media max staff, money through promo, such programs, dubious promotions, channels, dubious deals, money, letter, open letter, significant sums, huge amounts, attached letter, questionable promotion.
This then gave birth to #OkoaKameme superimposing on the hashtag #NgaruiyaKenMustGo which were driven using these keywords: toxic work environments, CEO job, mistreatment, very toxic environment, disrespectful, Ken Ngaruiya, African institutions, untold sufferings, equity.
This hashtag was also triggered by claims that letters had been written to the board, but that one of the board directors was against the firing of the CEO.
An analysis of both hashtags #Okoakameme and #MamaNginaSavekameme showed that there were 1,153 Original tweets. Of the total original tweets, only 186 are unique and only 27 had the #okoakameme
There were 1,567 retweets of all the tweets with the hashtag #MamaNginaSavekameme & #OkoaKamameme
These are some of the top tweets
Majority of the tweets with these hashtags also registered negative sentiments.
Top retweeted accounts:
Top retweeted tweets
Top unique accounts that retweeted content
Top accounts that posted original tweets in the network (`Seeders`)
The Nation then emailed the CEO of Mediamax to ask him to comment on the allegations. The email was never answered.
The earliest account identified posting the hashtag is @jelaniMK
The attack against corporations was also launched against Equity Bank, using #boycottEquityBank.
This hashtag was first mentioned on January 11, 2023, following a twitter story of a bank fraud , and a claim of a not-so-efficient response from the bank’s management. However, the total mention in tweets from meltwater would reach 20,500
Initial narratives before the hashtag ran included complaints from users who blamed the bank for fraudulent transactions they encountered. Here are related tweets.
Linking stories Safaricom's Ndegwa and Equity mentioned:
The attack was also launched on Facebook by a popular blogger.
Below is the trend of when and by how much the hashtag #boycottequitybank trended.
Nation established that the #boycottequitybank hashtag was largely driven by two accounts that coordinated inauthentic tweets in the five hashtags targeting the three corporations, by authoring tweets and retweeting.
The first is a twitter user called Kimuzi (username @Kimuzi_),whose tweets had the highest reach.
The second is a twitter user by the name Omosayansi, username @omosayansii, who drove the first narrative on Twitter
The two accounts coordinated on pushing the allegation that Equity Bank was withholding and stealing money from clients.
From the screenshot below, Kimuzi’s tweets gathered the most retweets.
The network driving the hashtag showed that the entire network originated from @kimuzi_.
When asked about his involvement in promoting the hashtag, Kimuzi said that he was contacted by a person in need and that he started the hashtag out of a genuine need to help. He also explained that the hashtag was not sponsored.
"It was purely from my heart and to help someone. I don't need payment. I'm fine and I don't work for anyone."
In its defence, Equity Bank published a post urging Kenyans to "be vigilant against scammers and fraudsters".
The post read: "As Kenyans we need to be vigilant against scammers and fraudsters. Brands like Equity, Safaricom, Kenya Bankers Association and others are running awareness campaigns to educate their customers and Kenyans on how to protect themselves and we applaud them."
The bank has also partnered with the Kenya Bankers Association (KBA) to educate its users on how to combat financial fraud by conducting secure online, mobile and card transactions, including campaigns such as #KaaChonjo! and #BeAlert on Twitter.
Some of the posts under these hashtags encourage customers to limit the amount of money that can be spent on their cards to "minimise losses in the event of unauthorised access to (their) funds", and urge customers to identify genuine bank phone numbers and hang up on fraudsters using different lines.
In a twitter post, on …………Mutahi Ngunyi posted on February 8,2023, alleging that #BoycottEquityBank is SPONSORED. However, when sought after to clarify and share more information on who may be responsible, he responded that he is “not able to.”
This investigative fact check was produced with support by Code For Africa.
