The State Has Found Social Media Hard to Control. So It Wants to Pay the People Who Control Attention
The government is not announcing a campaign so much as admitting that its voice no longer travels the way it used to.
The National Communication Strategy leaves little doubt about how the State sees the digital space today. Officials believe the government is losing ground online, and they say so directly. Against that backdrop, the document sets out a proposal to channel up to Sh100 million a year toward influencers and bloggers, not as a side project but as a central response to that loss of ground. The language stays bureaucratic. Still, the impulse is clear. Social media has become the place where authority is tested daily, and the State wants firmer footing there.
At the same time, the document stops short of describing an active system. Instead, it explains how one would operate if adopted. That distinction matters because it shapes how the strategy should be read. Rather than evidence of action, it offers insight into how power currently understands its own communication problem.
A recognition problem in a crowded digital arena
For decades, the government relied on a narrow set of channels to carry its message. Radio, television, and print worked through known editors and fixed routines. Over time, that structure weakened. Today, political meaning moves through feeds, group chats, and personalities that answer to audiences, not institutions.
The strategy acknowledges this shift without much decoration. It states that digital media has made information harder to manage because many voices now compete for attention. That framing matters because it reveals instinct. Instead of treating public discourse as something to be argued within, the document treats it as something to be managed.
As a result, the proposed response focuses less on changing how the State speaks and more on who delivers the message.
Paying for reach rather than trust
Under the proposal, the government would pay 10 macro-influencers Sh100,000 each per quarter and 20 micro-influencers Sh50,000 per quarter. Over 12 months, those stipends would total Sh20 million. Meanwhile, the rest of the Sh100 million allocation would go toward tools, training, and engagement forums.
In budget terms, this is not a heavy lift. It barely registers against national spending. Even so, the amount looks modest within the influencer economy itself. Statista estimates that Kenyan brands paid influencers about Sh645 million in 2025.
Yet scale is not the point. What matters is design. The proposal places heavy emphasis on hashtags, coordination, and volume. In practice, that means visibility comes first, while persuasion comes later, if at all. Hashtags create presence. However, they rarely build belief.
Entering an economy the State did not shape
Kenya’s influencer space did not grow out of public policy. Instead, it emerged through advertising, entertainment, and political friction. Many well-known political voices built followings by challenging authority or translating power into everyday language for sceptical audiences.
Now, the State wants to buy space inside that same ecosystem. The exchange is straightforward. Money flows in return for alignment, or at least softer criticism.
That trade cuts both ways. On one hand, influencers risk losing credibility with audiences who value distance from power. On the other, the government risks amplifying voices that many citizens already treat with caution. In that sense, neither side controls the outcome.
A long digital memory the State cannot reset
This is not the first time Kenyan authorities have turned to paid online voices. Amnesty International documented similar efforts during protest periods, when influencers reportedly pushed pro-government messaging and worked to bury critical hashtags. Later, Mozilla described comparable activity after the 2021 Pandora Papers leak.
Because of that history, any new proposal arrives carrying weight. Even when framed as public education or engagement, users will still read it through older patterns. Online communities remember tactics long after funding cycles end.
As a result, Sh100 million cannot purchase a reset. Instead, it may reinforce existing suspicion.
Misinformation as both reason and shield
The strategy leans heavily on misinformation as justification. It argues that influencers would receive tools to counter false claims in their communities. At first glance, that sounds reasonable. False information spreads fast, and governments do have a role in correcting it.
The difficulty appears when boundaries blur. In political moments, misinformation often overlaps with criticism, satire, or dissent. Yet the document does not explain how those distinctions would be enforced, or by whom.
Because the State defines both the problem and the response, the risk of overreach remains unresolved.
Central control meets a decentralised medium
Under the proposal, the Ministry of Information, Communication, and the Digital Economy would coordinate the effort alongside the Presidential Communication Service and the Office of the Government Spokesperson. That structure mirrors how state communication has long operated.
Social media, however, does not reward that logic. Influence spreads sideways, not down chains of command. Messages gain traction through tone, timing, and adaptation. Consequently, a centrally managed influencer network risks sounding rehearsed, especially during moments of tension.
The strategy emphasises coherence. Yet online audiences often read coherence as scripting.
What this approach would likely produce
If implemented as designed, the Kenya government influencer budget would likely deliver uneven results. Official talking points would surface more often in trending conversations. At the same time, some false claims would meet quicker rebuttal.
Still, deeper distrust would probably remain intact. More importantly, the programme could harden the line between state-aligned voices and organic civic commentary. That line already exists. Once contracts and stipends formalise it, spotting alignment becomes easier.
Over time, that visibility could change how Kenyans interpret political speech online. Not by making it more credible, but by making motive easier to question.
The legitimacy gap beneath the spending
At its core, the proposal points to a larger issue. Governments that command trust rarely need to rent attention. Governments that feel misunderstood often do.
Spending Sh100 million on influencers is not automatically wrong. However, legitimacy does not come from budget lines alone. It rests on transparency, accountability, and respect for public judgment.
The strategy treats attention as something the State can purchase and organise. Yet Kenya’s digital culture has shown, repeatedly, that attention behaves differently. It shifts, resists, and reframes power in ways institutions struggle to predict.
That tension sits at the centre of this plan. The State wants the tools of influence while holding onto old assumptions about control. In a networked public sphere, those assumptions rarely survive contact with the audience.
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