Issue No. 925

AI, Disinformation, and the Deepening Opacity of Somali Politics

Last week's gutting of the Washington Post will go down in the annals of dark days in global media. The sacking of hundreds of staff, including seasoned East Africa correspondent Katharine Houreld, radically diminishes scrutiny of politics at a moment when it is needed more urgently than ever.

For several reasons, Somalia remains a uniquely challenging country in which to report. The siloing of the international community to a couple of square kilometres in Halane hardly helps, but the endemic insecurity in much of the country prevents many journalists from venturing into Al-Shabaab-held territory. Arbitrary restrictions on reporting are commonplace, with scrutiny on shady business dealings or political pacts rarely appreciated by the elite classes in Garowe, Mogadishu, Baidoa, Jowhar or Kismaayo. Transparency International's latest rankings of the most corrupt countries — Somalia and South Sudan, with the dubious honour of being ranked at the bottom — illustrate why serious investigative journalism can lead to personal jeopardy. The money sloshing through Somali politics is almost audible, with patronage at the heart of Somalia's patrimonial system. But further polluting the waters is the rampant polarisation in Somali politics and, increasingly, in society, over the nature and future of the federation. The absence of genuine reporting has enabled individuals without ethical standards to generate widely read 'clickbait' with no regard for legal or journalistic ethics.

And despite nominal progress on state-building, politics in Somalia and the Horn of Africa are becoming ever more opaque, fuelled by democratic rollback, rising corruption, and the increasingly clandestine ways in which Gulf states conduct business with their African counterparts. The Turkish oil deal with Villa Somalia is one prime example, rushed through parliament without scrutiny, while the Emirates, too, generally prefer backroom dealings with their allies in Somaliland, Puntland, and Jubaland. Addis, as well, has found itself embroiled in a storm of its own making in recent days after a Reuters investigation confirmed the presence of a military base on Ethiopia's western border with Sudan, where thousands of Rapid Support Forces (RSF) fighters are being purportedly trained by Emirati officers. Addis has already refused to renew the accreditation of three Reuters journalists as a result. Diminishing support for journalists from major news institutions could not come at a more pressing moment, with the 'time of monsters' upon us in the words of political philosopher Antonio Gramsci.

Nor is the current health of the media ecosystem in Somalia thriving at this juncture, with successive governments clamping down on the entrepreneurial domestic journalists and news outlets that do not enjoy the heft of an international newsroom. Media outlets, meanwhile, are regularly co-opted by figures affiliated with the government; something all too evident in sudden about-turns on editorial policy. Hiiraan Online is one example, which now reads more like state media than a genuinely independent platform, toeing the government line about the persistent destruction of Al-Shabaab 'hideouts' in south-central. State media has particularly devolved, though, offering statements with only the vaguest correlation to events, such as taking credit for air strikes in Puntland that Mogadishu had no part in. Such assertions help to buttress persistent requests for more foreign money and military support, seeking to lend the narrative that Al-Shabaab is on the back foot and its defeat is imminent.

One might ask, though, how the militant group is operating in hideouts when it controls most of the interior of the country, and how many 'senior commanders' can be killed in a calendar year. But those outlets that do not toe the line often face the weight of the security forces through routine, heavy-handed policing. According to the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), though no journalist was killed for the first time since 2005 last year, the industry remains under "siege" from a mixture of state and non-state actors. 

Police and security agencies account for over "80% of all recorded violations" against media freedom, with female reporters particularly targeted. More often than not, such intimidation has been linked to a particular scandal, including last February, when Al-Shabaab routed government forces in central Somalia, and the Ministry of Information subsequently imposed a ban on reporting on issues that threaten "national security." But repression alone does not explain the fragility of Somalia's media ecosystem; its structural economics are equally determinative, with advertising revenues negligible and profit margins virtually non-existent. 

Then, on 28 January, journalists were barred from the parliament's chamber before debates began on amending the Provisional Constitution. A couple of days later, reporters from Somali Cable TV, Goobjoog TV, Mustaqbal Media and others were again prevented from reporting from parliament. It is not hard to imagine why these journalists were shut out of parliament; images shared by lawmakers online showed Villa Somalia staffers masquerading as parliamentarians to create the misleading impression of a quorum. To deny journalists access before deploying police to the site is hardly a positive indicator of how the government regards scrutiny, or indeed the legitimacy of this latest tranche of constitutional revisions.

This phenomenon did not begin with the current occupants of Villa Somalia, of course. In particular, ex-President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo was a pioneer in these disinformation and spin tactics in Somali politics, deploying a formal social media team to rally nationalist sentiment online-- as well as bot farms to massage engagement throughout his presidency. And during successive scandals, the former Somali president-- and hopeful this year-- managed to effectively deploy them to shift the conversation, more often than not by proclaiming attacks on Mogadishu's putative 'sovereignty.' This has been a favoured line of attack by the incumbents in Villa Somalia as well. Still, spin doctors are hardly unique to Somalia-- just look at the combative US Attorney General Pam Bondi hearing earlier this week. But much like in the increasingly dismal political world of the US, ad hominem attacks and misleading characterisations are ubiquitous in Somali politics. 

But the largest predator in Somalia's fractured media ecosystem is Al-Shabaab. Through the Al-Kataib Media Wing, the jihadist group is a voracious producer of sophisticated and wide-ranging propaganda and news, ranging from interviews with militant commanders disseminated on Radio Andalus to the grim videos of government military bases being overrun. Its topics and tones are far from monolithic, either, touching on a range of cultural, social, political, and geopolitical issues to connect with its various audiences. More broadly, the government has ceded ground in the media and online space to the 'Kharijites', still lacking a coherent StratCom strategy. 

Spools of writing have looked at the age of the Trumpian 'fake news', the rise of disinformation-- deliberate false and misleading details-- and misinformation-- incidentally wrong-- across the globe. But the advent and acceleration of Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly the rapid advances of Large Language Models (LLMs), is further muddying the waters. It is now all too common to see AI-generated political analysis churned out online, proliferating vague sentiments without real substance. Equally concerning is the rapid expansion of AI-generated images, with doctored and conjured photos depicting virtually anything one can imagine.

Beyond the massive implications for our social lives and the entertainment industry, the proliferation of 'fake news' and disinformation in politics has grown to a level beyond comprehension. The impact on Somali politics is already acute, with doctored images swirling around Facebook and X, including one recently of Somaliland President Abdirahman Irro clasping hands with Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu. Though it still struggles with Somali, the eerie accuracy of AI-duplicated voices could well trigger a serious scandal in the months to come.

The situation is not relentlessly bleak, though. Bilan Media is one positive news story, an outfit of all-female journalists formed a couple of years ago that produces high-quality reporting. Citizen journalism, too, has become increasingly vital, seeking to keep the government and actors to account. But it is in every despot and wannabe demagogue's interests to curtail and co-opt freedom of speech and the media. And much like the advent of the internet, AI was promised to be a great democratiser, and to some extent, it has brought data and information to people's fingertips. Rather than being allies in these fundamental pursuits, our new tech overlords are all too happy to kowtow to those who will bring them billions and free their hands to plunder our data. And in Somalia, opacity has always had eager beneficiaries.

The Somali Wire Team