TikTok launches Kenyan General Election Guide In-App

TikTok launches an elections hub in Kenya ahead of General Elections

TikTok has launched product features and completed in-market activities to support its vision to help its community access factual and authoritative information about the Kenyan general elections ahead of 9 August.

These efforts are part of TikTok’s commitment to curb misinformation in the lead-up to the elections and ensure that information is disseminated responsibly.

TikTok believes in collaboration with various stakeholders, to help strengthen its efforts to protect against harm and misuse on its platform, which is why the entertainment app works with an array of experts and organizations to help promote safety on TikTok.

The team in Africa did week-long engagements in Kenya targeting NGOs, government, media, corporate organizations, civil societies, educational institutions, and other role-players that form part of the TikTok community in Kenya.

“We are engaging with diverse stakeholders in Kenya to discuss opportunities and challenges for dynamic solutions in a fast-paced digital world. Our resolve is to spread positivity in markets where we operate as we promote peaceful coexistence,” said TikTok’s SSA Government Relations, Fortune Mgwili-Sibanda.

These stakeholder engagements in conjunction with the launch of the elections hub in Kenya affirm TikTok’s commitment to being a responsible industry leader that aims to make a positive impact in Africa and throughout the world.

As part of the initiative, TikTok launched a 3-part series titled #TikTokForPeace in partnership with Article19 which is a series of TikTok LIVE streams hosted at Strathmore University, Policy Innovation center and streamed on the Article19 TikTok page featuring key opinion formers in government, civil society, and academia, to focus on tolerance, building bridges and active citizenship.

“TikTok plays a significant role in shaping discourse around Important topics. Using TikTok as a medium through which to engender an atmosphere of mutual cooperation during Kenya’s national election period is part of our resolve to provide a platform that promotes peace and provides a safe space for positive digital expression,” says Mgwili-Sibanda.

In Kenya and beyond, the TikTok community is encouraged to be a part of the campaign by reporting harmful content that appears untrue and fuels any political intolerance in any way. TikTok is a platform that encourages authentic and entertaining content that speaks to the important message of national and global harmony.

Delegates in attendance had this to say “I was really excited to have TikTok join us. I got to experience their mission in action, as the workshop was not only educational but it inspired my creativity and I got to have fun too. As a Family IT Consultant, specializing in Child Online Safety my highlights were the intentionality of security and privacy and in-app features that I didn’t know existed to keep us and our children safe.”

The screen time management feature was also a key highlight because the prompts to take breaks are so important and it is one of the tools I will use in client sessions. Reporting is made so simple which is amazing for younger users, but more importantly, no one is too old for TikTok; the platform offers a variety of ways to harness its power.

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“I feel empowered and confident to use the app and to be able to effectively help young people plus their families be safe and inspire creativity,” said Evelyn Casina, CEO at Eveminet Communication Solutions Limited.

“The event was very informative and offered proper guidance on how to manage the children’s presence online, how to avoid bullying, and channels of reporting videos propagating hate speech, especially during this electioneering period,” added Martha Sunda, Executive Director, Childline Kenya.

As an entertainment platform, TikTok continuously updates its community with innovative features and functions to enhance their experience and supports these developments with robust tools and controls that help users to manage the content they consume on the platform.

Tiktok joined Nairobi Garage in January 2020 when it started its operations in Kenya. Based at our Office space in Kilimani, the Tiktok Platform has rapidly become the world’s fastest-growing short-form video platform, with millions of users logging on each day to either create their own short videos or simply consume the light-hearted-videos shared by others.

As of 2022, TikTok was available in over 150 countries, has over 1 billion users, TikTok has been downloaded 3 billion times, and was the most downloaded non-game app in the first 6 months of 2021, hitting 383 million installs from January to June 2021 alone.

These figures are not for the Play Store alone but a combination of downloads from Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store. Since its inception, TikTok has generated $175 million in revenue worldwide across Google Play and App Store, according to the research firm.

The first version of the app to be developed was Douyin, the Chinese equivalent of Tik Tok for China in September 2016 by ByteDance. The international version was launched in September 2017, by the same company for markets outside China.

The social media video platform is used to create and share short videos which could comprise comedy, lip-syncing, talent videos, and anything creative. The short music and lip sync videos are created with a 3 to 15-second timeline, while the short looping videos are created with a 3 to the 60-second time limit.

TikTok merged with the popular social media platform, Musical.ly on 9 November 2017 in a billion-dollar purchase, which had already been used to target the US teenage market.

In 2018, the app gained so much popularity and was the most downloaded with roughly 800 million downloads worldwide, according to the data acquired from mobile research firm Sensor Tower, which excluded China’s android users.