MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – Somalia’s federal government is facing mounting accusations of deploying bot networks on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) to target critical voices and independent media amid rising public discontent. The coordinated digital campaigns appear aimed at silencing dissent, disrupting the dissemination of independent information, and intimidating opposition figures and analysts.
In recent weeks, a growing number of political analysts, journalists, and news platforms – including Somaliguardian – have reported being subjected to inauthentic, machine-generated quote posts designed to drown out their messages with spam, abuse, and gibberish.
Among those targeted are Rashid Abdi, a political analyst with Sahan Research, and Samira Gaid, a prominent voice on Somalia’s political and security landscape. Both have publicly decried the surge in bot activity, linking it to supporters of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Villa Somalia, the presidential palace.
“Accounts of many Somali analysts on X are being subjected to an intense inauthentic machine-generated attack. The attack is designed to ‘dislike’ a tweet by ‘quote posting’ abusive or simply gibberish content. The accounts are fake. The way to spot this manipulation is to check the ‘quote-like’ ratio. A 3.3k post, quote and 85 like is impossible in 15 mins of posting,” said Rashid Abdi.
“The attack is without doubt being orchestrated by parties supportive of HSM,” he added.
Samira Gaid echoed similar concerns, describing the shift from physical repression to a digital crackdown on dissent.
“The repression long exercised against Somali citizens through force and threats to livelihoods has now spilled onto the digital sphere. Within minutes of posting anything critical, like-minded voices are being swarmed by low-quality bot accounts. Notice who remains untouched, and that will tell you exactly who is paying for this cheap bot farm and whose interests are being protected,” she said.
“If our voices weren’t important, they wouldn’t waste money trying to drown them out. But imagine if the same energy and money were directed toward solving Somalia’s real problems, rather than silencing different opinions.”
The bot attacks have not been limited to analysts and media outlets. Even opposition leaders, including former President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, have reportedly been targeted. Respected scholars and peace advocates such as Professor Afyare Abdi Elmi have also come under digital assault, with almost every one of his recent posts being flooded by bot-generated quote tweets.
Although Somaliguardian could not independently verify whether the Somali government is directly behind the coordinated attacks, the trend is unmistakable: accounts posting content critical of the current administration are consistently targeted, while those aligned with or favorable to the government remain untouched.
The emergence of this alleged bot-driven censorship marks a concerning new chapter in Somalia’s political discourse – one where silencing critical voices no longer requires arrests or threats, but algorithms and artificial amplification.
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