New Report Links US-based Media to Online Smear Campaigns against Raila

A newly released report has linked a United States political media firm based in Texas to online smear campaigns against Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga in the run to the August 8th presidential election.

The report describes Harris Media, which has reportedly worked for US President Donald Trump in the past as “a far-right American digital media company,” and links it to two anonymous sites: TheReal Raila and Uhuru for Us.

The report was released by London-based Privacy International, a firm that says it works to fighting for privacy rights across the world. The report further claims that online campaigns that either tainted Mr Odinga or sought to publicize President Kenyatta’s accomplishments in his first term, were engineered on behalf of the presidential reelection campaign team.

Harris Media declined to comment to questions by Privacy International regarding its role in the presidential contest between Odinga and Kenyatta, with Jubilee Party Secretary General Raphael Tuju, denying having knowledge of TheReal Raila site, the report says.

“TheReal Raila and another site which links back to Uhuru for Us, ‘Candidates for Kenya,’ share an IP address with Harris Media’s own website and over 30 conservative campaigns,” the report says.

“The Uhuru For Us Twitter account, created in March of this year, still appears linked to a Harris Media email address,” the report further points out.

‘The Harris Media staff members, including Josh Canter, its vice president for content production, worked on TheReal Raila site,” the report asserts.

The report says that TheReal Raila published “lightly-sourced characterisations of Odinga as a dangerous, racist xenophobe, with promoting his tribe and family as his primary political aim.”

“Harris Media’s TheReal Raila and Uhuru for Us campaigns relied on ad words in Google search and apparently targeted advertising on a range of social media platforms,” Privacy International explains.

“As ads for TheReal Raila and Uhuru for Us flooded Twitter, Facebook and YouTube accounts throughout Kenya, it was commonly believed that the British data mining firm Cambridge Analytica was behind them,” the report recounts.

“It was clear that whoever sponsored them had a lot of money to spend,” Privacy International notes.