Protesters in Kenya Need Software That is Free (Libre) and Supports Real Encryption in Order to Avoid Capture and Torture (Sometimes Execution)
There's more to fight over than economic issues
Kenya is a large, resource-rich country that has a long history of British (and Microsoft) colonialism. It's moving away from Microsoft, but Microsoft is reportedly moving from Nigeria to Kenya amid mass layoffs [1, 2, 3], looking to quell the "dissent". Putting aside the history of torture in Kenya [1, 2], we recently saw Microsoft paying Kenyans just $2 an hour to work on LLMs. That's like slavery or 'modern slavery' (which is just slavery with a guilt-lessening, apologetic euphemism).
Kenyans can grasp the idea of independence because they didn't always have that.
GNU/Linux and Free software adoption are nothing to do with poverty and "everything to do with Freedom," an associate reminds us, having just noticed that protests in Kenya use some "app" that's proprietary. It is the 'F-word' (freedom), he argues, "which Microsofters, and their backers, object most to. And therefore a strong reason to promote and emphasize the F-word and its meaning in the context of software and computers."
"Missing is discussion on whether the app is even remotely safe. FOSS is the first prerequisite among several. However, not a word about surveillance or who controls the back-end and how long the recording are kept and by whom" [1, 2]
And "just to be clear," he said, "that app is not FOSS and thus fails in the first cull."
A lot of sites or "apps" that stir up mass protests turn out to be beacons or honeypots. Sooner or later a lot of data is handed over with lists of people to crack down on (arrest and then convict using their own actions/words).
Kenya needs better tools for organising, preferably not "apps". █