The Politics of Social Media in Africa

In this episode, Justin Hendrix speaks with Nerima Wako-Ojiwa, director of Siasa Place, and Odanga Madung, a tech and society researcher and journalist, about the intersection of technology, labor rights, and political power in Kenya and across Africa. The conversation explores the ongoing struggles of content moderators and AI data annotators, who face exploitative working conditions while performing essential labor for major tech companies; the failure of platforms fail to address harmful biases and disinformation that particularly affect African contexts; the ways in which governments increasingly use platform failures as justification for internet censorship and surveillance; and the promise of youth and labor movements that point to a more just and democratic future.