African youths are actively holding their leaders to account and organized protests to voice their concerns. However, access to accurate information, especially during protests, is essential in building a well-informed population capable of driving meaningful change. Liz Shoo speaks to young Africans attending the 'Bürgerfest' or 'citizens festival' of the German president.
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00:00Today is the Citizens Festival. The partner country for this year is Kenya, and that is why the motto of this year's festivities is the Swahili word pamoya, which means together and I am here with young Africans. We're going to talk about how we can create a good communication environment so that young Africans can feel like they are part of shaping their society and shaping democracies.
00:24All right, we're going to jump right into it. Mercy, I want to start with you because you are from Kenya and we all witnessed the protests, the youth-led protests that were happening in Kenya.
00:33First of all, I'd say social media, social activism actually works. It's very important that people know out there that it really works. It has worked past few months, it worked, but it's important that the young people have the right information to share. So they need to stay informed with accurate information, information that is very objective.
00:51So you're saying it's not only about going out there and raising your voice, but also having the accurate information.
00:56Yes.
00:57Okay, Tony, I want to bring you into the conversation. What do you say about what she just told us?
01:01I mean, I agree with her that it's not just important to show up in your numbers, but to show up with the right information, because sometimes information is what is powerful, knowing the right ways to tackle the issues.
01:15Because the problem I can speak from a Ghanaian perspective is that we have a lot of partisan politics, so it's very difficult to know what is actually accurate and what is propaganda or the information from the other side trying to tarnish the image of the certain government.
01:31So it's important to actually get credible third parties or credible information sources that can tell you that this is why we are protesting, these are the reasons.
01:42You mentioned credible sources there. What would be an example from Ghana?
01:45I get most of my information from Twitter. And there's this account called Fact Check Ghana, which basically what most of the people I follow, most of the tweets I see is if there's an election in Ghana in December.
01:58So when there's a campaign event or a rally or there's a press briefing, basically people just say, when this person said this, is it true or not? And they mention that account and say, please fact check it for us.
02:11And then they have a website, so you can go in on the page, they say claims by so-and-so person, and then they give a verdict whether it is actually true or false with the data that backs it or the documents from maybe if the parliament has a report that speaks about the issue, then they tell you that based on this and that, it is actually false.
02:30And sometimes the false news is based on the truth. So it can be very easy to just spin it in a positive way.
02:38So it's not a total lie there. And having those fact checkers really makes sense. It's really important.
02:43Okay. I want to turn to you, Zanele, now. You are from Zimbabwe. You also study journalism. You're a tech entrepreneur. And we saw that the protests in Kenya, they really had some ripple effects in other countries, in Uganda, in Nigeria, young people taking to the streets to protest different issues. It was all quiet in Zimbabwe.
03:03Yeah, so it's definitely not all rosy, as you say. Historically, there's been a history of suppression of the voices of the people when they try to speak out to the authorities.
03:13And so young people, most of the times, they're afraid to actually go to different platforms because there's also surveillance. And we've seen history of some people also being jailed.
03:26However, young people have also come up with their independent media sources, because we also have a history of one state-controlled media source for a very long time.
03:37But young people have come up with those platforms, such as Plus263chat on Twitter. And young people should actually participate more in these debates through these independent sources.
03:49Okay, I want to stay on the issue of social media. Mercy, of course, you've raised that issue already before. But what I'm seeing, for example, in Kenya, is that lots of politicians, even President Ruto, who was here in Berlin, he's very active on social media.
04:03You see him on TikTok, like he's dancing, he's visiting schools, he's attending rallies. Is that the only possibility of politicians to reach the young Kenyans?
04:14Of course, it's the easiest way right now, because most young people are on social media. The other ways in which they can reach the people is back there in the village. And that's why I'm really saying that the young people should come out and be part of civic education, for example.
04:27So they can reach the young people out there still in the villages, because not everyone is on social media. Not everyone has access to maybe to data and all that. So I feel like they should find ways in which they can involve the public.
04:39Okay, but I want to stay on the issue of social media, because a country like Kenya is known for its Twitter warriors. And I find it really interesting that we keep calling it Twitter, although it's X. But you have all these Twitter warriors. And I know that lots of campaigns really have happened online in Kenya. So where is the value of that kind of social media activism?
05:01We call them keyboard warriors in my country. I think I like that right now, people have even come out and they are now going outside. They are really going down to face the issues. We've had many issues around the country. I would say like we've had a recent fire in one of the schools. And we've had these keyboard warriors now stepping out of the social media network and going down there to actually do what we call fact checking. He mentioned that.
05:29Tony, your input, please.
06:00And then it generates it for you. So it's good to keep it. It feels very isolated when you look at these incidents. But because the Internet is such an expansive space, you get content from all over the continent, from all over the world. So it's important to see these as learning opportunities. And so when you see something happening somewhere, you don't just think, oh, wow, Kenya's are so cool. You can now think, oh, wow, Kenya's are so cool. Maybe we can do this in Ghana.
06:25OK, so young people, if they want to, you know, create a better tomorrow for themselves. What about them getting involved in politics very quickly?
06:55Zanele was listening very intently. OK, you get the final word, Zanele. What do you have to say?
07:25I'm going to take that as the final word. My panelists, you have been wonderful. Thank you so much, Zanele. Thank you, Tony. Thank you, Mercy. And thank you to our wonderful audience for being with us and for participating in this very lively debate about how young Africans can use communication and other tools to shape their democracies and to shape their societies. This was the street debate from Berlin, Germany. Thank you so much for being part of the conversation.