Kenya: The SMS is as convenient as it is a perilous medium

When Winnie Wawasi Msengeti allegedly sent an unflattering SMS text to Grace Wahito, little did she know there would be consequences. Poor Winnie ended up in a court of law, and is now out on a Sh50,000 bail.

There is also Esther Mwende, who was fined Sh30,000 for sending offensive messages to Stephen Ngumbao.

 

But Winnie and Esther are by no means the first Kenyans to find themselves on the wrong side of the law for SMS misadventures.

 

Before them were a string of others who found themselves on the wrong side of the law for pressing the ‘Send’ button a tad too eagerly.
The technology may not be the best thing to happen to humanity since the invention of the flush toilet, but it is now an inseparable part of man.

 

It partly defines relations between you and your wife, fiancé and fiancée, mother and daughter… name it.

 

In the bathroom

 

Figure this: Many are the men and women who will take with them their mobile phones to the bathroom.

 

And it is not that their idea of fun is browsing the Internet or calling friends from the comfort of the toilet seat.

 

No. It is only that they would rather you called them mad than afford you those three minutes to browse through their mobile phones, especially the messages folder. If you know a man by the type of friends he keeps, you will also know him by the types he communicates with.

 

The SMS can be the purveyor of glad tidings or dark stuff, even though the nature of the content lies in the mind of the sender. In their quest to kill, steal, maim, defraud or insult, all manner of social misfits have found a useful tool in this wireless technology.

 

From fraudsters and kidnappers to enraged employees, terrorists, disenchanted business partners and political thugs, the SMS is indispensable. That is why one of the most commonly reported crimes in this category in Kenya is the use of offensive messages.

 

Experts attribute this to the fact that sending an SMS lends itself to a false sense of privacy and security.
“It’s cheaper than a phone call and the other person doesn’t have the luxury of hanging up on you,” says Chris Harrison, a communication expert with Young and Rubicam Brands in Nairobi.

 

True, the recipient may have no way of hanging up on you, but they can block your number, after which you will use another Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card. Either way, you will be digging yourself into a hole.

 

Sending an abusive message by means of a licensed telecommunication system is an offence according Section 29(a) of the Communication Act of 1998. If convicted, the offender is liable to a prison sentence of up to three months or a fine of up to Sh50,000, or both.

 

Before and after the 2007 General Elections, ethnically charged SMS texts fuelled the anarchy that resulted in the deaths of over 1,300 Kenyans and the displacement of hundreds of thousands more.

 

Early this year, the popular SMS was also blamed for the bloody conflict between Christians and Muslims in the volatile Nigerian city of Kano, in which more than 300 people were killed.

 

Such is the convenience and double-faced efficiency of the SMS that even prisoners make tidy sums from the confines of their dark dungeons.
In February, the media was awash with reports of fraudsters fleecing the gullible through SMS prompts.

 

The culprits, identified as wayward prison warders and death row inmates, were colluding with outsiders using disposable SIM cards to defraud Kenyans by promising them plum overseas jobs or millions of shillings in prize money from non-existent competitions.

 

They would also sell, on the cheap, airtime obtained from unsuspecting participants in these ‘competitions and promotions’.
But the SMS is not entirely at the disposal of the devilish.

 

The technology behind it means you can receive thousands of shillings from a relative in London, pay school fees, settle your electricity and water bills and send aid to a friend stuck in Mandera. Think M-Pesa, Zap and other mobile money transfer services.

 

Besides being the easiest and the cheapest way to interact with family and friends, bank services, health and love tips can now be accessed through the SMS.

 

Unlike in the past when family disputes that happened during the night had to wait until after work the following to be sorted, a tactfully worded text message during the day can send a wide grin across the face of an offended party, forestalling a nasty eventuality.

 

“Sending her a cheerful or reconciliatory message during the day always works wonders,” says Kaburu Busunkwi, a father of one.

 

However, in marriages and relationships, the SMS is a double-edged sword since the discovery of a raunchy text in a spouse’s phone has become a one-way ticket to trouble.

 

The fact that the message service was among the data services that provided the bulk of the half-year pre-tax profits for Safaricom, the biggest mobile service provider in the country, speaks volume of the financial potential this technology.

 

Developed in the early 1980s from radio technology by American researchers before being upgraded to a global communications system, the SMS is the most widely used data application in the world, with 2.4 billion active users — or 74 per cent of all mobile phone subscribers.

 

According to Wikipedia, an online resource centre, 4.1 trillion SMS texts were sent in 2008 alone, making it a global industry worth over $81 billion (Sh7 trillion) at the time. The largest market for the SMS is Southeast Asia, with Europe and the United States following closely.

 

With 20 million mobile phone subscribers, Kenya hasn’t missed out on this big business either.
“I like it because it’s cheap, reliable and instantaneous,” says civil servant Moses Ndwiga.

 

Service providers have also realised the popularity of the SMS among the youth, for all their adverts related to this service are tailor-made for the under 25s.

 

Because the text message platform allows 160 characters, a new language is evolving as words are tweaked in order to squeeze in as much information as possible.

 

Although the informal SMS language has been, in some cases, blamed for bringing down English grades, this has done nothing to deter Generation Y from ‘doin ther thig’.

 

On the brighter side, the SMS has saved and spiced up lives.

 

Rescue operations and the fight against HIV/AIDS and malaria in Africa have used the SMS to reach their targets.

 

In a programme called “SMS For Life” piloted in Tanzania, a combination of mobile phone and digital mapping technology is used to track and manage drug delivery to health facilities in rural areas.

 

A similar service was launched several months back in Kenya, but it never took off in a big way like that in Tanzania. However, the SMS is being used in drought management and monitoring livestock diseases.

 

During Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti earthquake disasters, mobile messages were used to herd people into safe zones as well as gather donations from well wishers. SMS texts have also been used in the past to trace and rescue stranded mountaineers, sea voyagers and bush trekkers.

 

In the just concluded referendum campaigns, both sides of the political divide, civil groups and the Interim Independent Electoral Commission used mobile messages to woo voters, urge peaceful elections and tally the votes.

 

The public could also monitor the results as they streamed in by texting to a special number.
Unlike the Internet or radio, the mobile texting service is hard to jam, especially the encrypted version, which is why autocratic states have problems with BlackBerry’s Instant Messaging service.

 

The encryption technology is way above the decoding ability of state snoopers, meaning coup plotters can discuss their plans right under the nose of a suspicious sheikh.

 

After Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe gagged all the country’s independent newspapers and radio stations, the exiled media kept the citizenry updated through text messages.

 

In Kenya, as the country grapples with the effects of an informed public that has access to all the services it needs, and as the police work to keep crime levels at the minimum, the Communications Commission of Kenya has decreed that all mobile phone users register their SIM cards as a deterrent to cellular crime.

 

“It will not put a stop to crime per se, but it will help isolate the criminal elements and make the perpetration of crime using a mobile telephone line less convenient,” said Safaricom CEO Michael Joseph.

 

Tanzania, South Africa, Botswana, Cameroon and Ethiopia are among the African countries that have taken the measure of registering subscribers’ SIM cards.

 

-August 17, 2010 by John  Mwaura Samora

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Source:www.nation.co.ke/magazines/The%20SMS%20is%20as%20convenient%20as%20it%20is%20a%20perilous%20medium%20/-/1190/978130/-/item/1/-/otond0/-/index.html  (accessed on 18.08.10)