Issue No. 640

The Rise of AI and Disinformation in Somalia

Late last week, a plane carrying senior Ethiopian officials was turned away from Somaliland after Somalia's air officials refused authorisation for it to enter. Speculation on X, formerly Twitter, was rife as those on either side of the current Somalia-Ethiopia rift accused the other of escalating tensions and disinformation. Several hours passed as the furore intensified as #NotAnInch, a reference to the perceived encroachment of Ethiopia upon Somalia's territory, trended across several platforms. But as so often happens, the headlines belied a more complicated truth. While a plane was turned away, another aircraft carrying Ethiopian officials did reach Hargeisa.
 
The speed at which the story was seized upon is indicative of a couple of important issues. First is the intense nationalist sentiments being bandied about online by political commentators. The rhetoric has steadily increased since the New Year's Memorandum of Understanding between Somaliland and Ethiopia and shows little sign of easing. Second, and perhaps more concerning, is the ease with which misinformation spreads like wildfire on social media. By the time the BBC and others could verify the news, the news cycle had moved on, yet the outrage remained.
 
The great democratising nature of the internet, and particularly platforms like X, plays a particularly important role in countries like Somalia, where freedom of speech is routinely repressed and its media landscape is haphazardly controlled. Without rigorous investigative journalism and press standards, the burden has fallen on ordinary Somalis to navigate the echo chambers in both formal and social media.
 
Of course, the internet also has its well-documented drawbacks in the age of 'fake news' and the populism of demagogues like Donald Trump and former Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo. And when details of Al-Shabaab attacks, displacement numbers, and palace intrigue can take days or even weeks to verify, the potential for disinformation and misinformation is enormous.
 
The rise of ever-advancing Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs may further threaten Somalia's fragile information landscape. Without rigorous controls on this technology, and governments are famously slow at regulation, election interference tactics are set to become more sophisticated, and more effective. Ironically, the current '4.5' clan system may insulate Somalia's public from the worst of the AI excesses for the moment. But as plans for one-person, one-vote elections inch forward, AI capabilities race ahead.
 
Globally, unscrupulous politicians, commentators and information ministries are more than happy to whip up the online mob when it suits their narrative and agenda. Some efforts are surprisingly lazy. A widely circulated 'photo' of rocket attacks in Asmara in November 2020 was actually of a factory explosion in China in 2015. But in just a couple of years, AI has come on leaps and bounds, and shockingly lifelike depictions are now commonplace. It would only take a minute for an individual with the proper program to create an image of a high-ranking government official waving a Somaliland flag.
 
Photos are not the only depictions that AI is becoming ever more sophisticated at mimicking; voices are being replicated with disturbing accuracy, too. A fake robo-call manufactured to sound like US President Joe Biden was sent to thousands in New Hampshire last week prior to the Republican primary there. The Somali political context at the federal and regional is well known for plentiful political money. Imagine how easy it would be to fund a sophisticated AI campaign readymade for a half-dozen wannabe demagogues? It is also not impossible to imagine a fake recording of a foreign nation declaring war on Mogadishu going viral.
 
The situation isn't all bad. AI also has extraordinary power to help educate and inform populations without reliable access to education. Machine learning tools like ChatGPT have shown immense capability to process and disseminate information at incredible speeds. For Somalia's sprawling internally displaced person (IDP) camps, where many children are without access to education, AI could offer a lower-quality alternative form of learning. The processing power of AI could also be harnessed to inform communities of the risks of flooding or drought in their areas.
 
The AI 'arms race' is heating up, with the potential to remake our world for positive and negative. Entire industries and job categories are being wiped out as these models learn at a faster rate than many of us can comprehend. While AI regulation will not come from Mogadishu but from Washington, Beijing and Brussels, Somalia will not be immune to these global media earthquakes and manipulation. As always, regulation and implementation are two different matters. Years or even months from now, the 'story' about a plane being turned back may look positively quaint.

​By the Somali Wire team