Kenya is fast emerging as a testing ground for artificial intelligence-driven political manipulation, a new report has warned.
The report released by Amnesty International on Wednesday said the country’s digital ecosystem is being weaponised by political actors, private contractors and coordinated online networks using advanced AI tools to shape public opinion ahead of the 2027 General Election.
The report is named This fear, everyone is feeling it: Tech-facilitated violence against young activists in Kenya examines patterns of tech-enabled violence in the country. It finds that online harassment and smear campaigns have become a core tactic to undermine the credibility and reach of government critics.
This, the report says, has suppressed further mobilization and forced online protesters to censor themselves, escalating pre-existing challenges to human rights defenders’ online safety.
The report also revealed a sharp rise in AI-generated propaganda, bot-driven political messaging, deepfakes, algorithmic targeting and coordinated online harassment campaigns, a level of digital interference previously associated with major geopolitical powers.
“As digital platforms have become increasingly integral to activism and advocacy, the risks associated with online engagement have escalated, leading to a concerning rise in targeted abuse, threats, and smear campaigns against young people who stand up for human rights.
“The frequency and gravity of the threat now not only undermine the critical work of HRDs [human rights defenders] but also create an atmosphere of fear, intimidation and violence that stifles dissent and hinders human rights progress,” the report says.
It adds that young women activists who participated in the “Gen Z protests” and the #EndFemicideKE protests narrated about vicious attacks online in the form of misogynistic comments, body shaming, threats, doxing and AI-generated pornographic images produced to shame, threaten and silence them.
Amnesty warns that Kenya’s combination of high internet penetration, youthful online population, political polarisation and weak digital governance has made the country a perfect “laboratory” for testing new forms of political manipulation.
The study documents an accelerated shift from simple misinformation to highly coordinated, AI-enhanced narrative warfare.
It highlights the deployment of AI-generated videos and images impersonating public figures or distorting political events, as well as bot networks masquerading as ordinary citizens to simulate political consensus
Additionally, deepfake-driven disinformation intended to inflame tensions has also intensified, with synthetic social media accounts created using AI-fabricated identities
The study also finds that automated hate and intimidation campaigns are algorithmically done, complicating crack down on hate speech and incitement.
Through social media analysis and network mapping, testimonies of affected activists and an interview with a disinformation-for-hire influencer, Amnesty International was able to examine the tactics employed by Kenya’s shadowy disinformation industry in hijacking X’s trending topics and spreading pro- government and anti-protest narratives.
Researchers found evidence of repeated coordinated attacks discrediting prominent young HRDs as “paid” or “commercial activists” and “liars” in response to their struggle for public accountability for human rights violations.
Other false and harmful narratives included claims that young survivors of enforced disappearances abducted themselves and lied about their ordeals. Additionally, tech-facilitated surveillance is widely believed to have played a crucial role in the state’s repressive response to the protests.
“For instance, in July 2024, a coordinated disinformation campaign emerged on X, discrediting the protesters as driven by the interests of LGBTI people in Kenya, purportedly undermining Kenyan “family values”. Many posts contained AI-generated images of same-sex couples kissing at the protests,” the report notes.
Such tactics, the report notes, have begun to influence national debates around elections, anti-government protests, and political discourse.
One of the report’s most alarming findings is that Kenyan youth sit at the centre of this new information battleground. They are both primary targets of digital violence and key participants—knowingly or unknowingly—in coordinated political influence operations.
Frequent victims of online harassment, young Kenyans also face manipulation through incentives that draw them into orchestrated disinformation networks, including paid retweet armies, troll groups, fake news amplification teams and bot-assisted campaigns.
The report warns that the exploitation of youth, who are already economically vulnerable and politically disillusioned, risks entrenching a long-term cycle of digital political mercenary work.
The study shows that Kenya experiences predictable spikes in AI-assisted political manipulation during election campaigns, protest waves, including those led by Gen Z, court verdicts on political disputes and Cabinet reshuffles and party realignments.
AI tools are used not only to spread propaganda but to coordinate harassment, drown out critical voices, and pressure institutions.
Highlighting the role of modern technology in facilitating new forms of attacks, young female activists especially repeatedly spoke of personal and witnessed experiences of women’s faces being edited onto pornographic images to intimidate and silence them, either through photo-editing or the use of generative AI.
AI- generated videos are also spread on TikTok and X to push conspiracies.
These patterns have intensified since 2022 and worsened around the 2025 political protests, signalling an increasingly volatile digital landscape, Amnesty says.
DIGITAL MERCENARIES
A significant section of the report exposes the role of private contractors and political consultancies — in some instances working for government —operating as “digital mercenaries” for hire.
These groups run sophisticated online operations that include mass-reporting to silence opponents, coordinated trolling, trend manipulation, paid hate campaigns and narrative manufacturing using AI tools.
These operations, the report notes, often run parallel to official political messaging, giving politicians plausible deniability while enabling unprecedented levels of online toxicity.
The report concludes that Kenya’s digital space has become a national security concern, with AI-driven manipulation increasingly spilling into real-world violence, political intimidation and institutional mistrust.
The consequences include suppression of civic participation, erosion of public trust in institutions and targeted harassment of activists and journalists. Others are increased ethnic and political polarization as well as manipulation of public sentiment around elections
Analysts warn that without urgent regulatory interventions and stronger accountability from major tech platforms, Kenya risks becoming an exporter of digital political warfare tactics to neighbouring countries.
Given Kenya’s role as a regional tech hub, the report suggests that the country’s evolving digital battlefield could influence political manipulation strategies across Africa.
