Femicide as content: How media, algorithms shape public attention

There is a TikTok trend built around a gospel song by Christina Shusho: “Kijana kanipenda, kanichukua, kanitengeza…” loosely translated as “Jesus loved me, took me in, and cared for me.” But the images now attached to the sound tell a different story.

Women sit before the camera, lifting sleeves to reveal scars. A wheelchair. A hospital bed. A graveside.

No graphic images. No narration. Just fragments of lives interrupted.

The restraint feels intentional. These women are choosing what to show and what to withhold. In a country where survivors are often pushed to relive trauma publicly, that control matters.

But there is another uncomfortable truth beneath these videos: they travel because they fit the logic of the platforms carrying them.

Pain, it turns out, is optimised.

Kenyan newsrooms are not starting from scratch when it comes to artificial intelligence and digital platforms, but they are also not fully prepared for the systems shaping public attention today. Kenya is seeing widespread use of AI tools online, even as many newsrooms struggle to integrate them into editorial systems.

That gap matters because platforms increasingly shape not just what people watch, but what they remember.

Social media platforms are not neutral spaces where every story has an equal chance of being seen. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and X are designed to prioritise content that keeps people engaged for longer.

Videos that trigger emotion, outrage or shock tend to perform best.

The systems behind these platforms constantly measure behaviour: watch time, pauses, shares, comments and replays. The more emotionally charged the content, the more likely it is to spread. That creates a feedback loop.

What people react to becomes what they see more of. What performs well gets amplified. Over time, public attention begins to follow the same pattern.

A video showing a woman’s scars may reach millions within hours. A court update on the same case may barely circulate beyond a few headlines. One is consumable. The other requires commitment.

The result is that violence becomes highly visible, while accountability remains largely invisible.

Online, gender-based violence is often reduced to images that can be consumed quickly: bruises, tears, hospital rooms, funerals.

These moments are easy for platforms to measure and rank. They generate engagement. And engagement generates money.

Platforms keep users scrolling. Media houses see spikes in traffic whenever a case goes viral. Audiences share, express outrage and then move on.

What rises to the top is not justice or follow-up. It is whatever gets the fastest reaction. That cycle has become painfully familiar in Kenya.

When university student Ivy Wangeci was murdered in 2019, public grief merged with online spectacle. Her death resurfaced repeatedly in memes, skits and viral references.

The TikTok trend follows the same pattern. It may feel more personal because survivors are telling their own stories, but the stories still move through systems built to reward emotional intensity. Once attention shifts, the stories disappear.

The killing of Rita Waeni in January 2024 sparked national outrage. Her name dominated television bulletins, newspaper headlines and social media timelines. For days, the country demanded answers. Then attention moved on. Updates on investigations and court proceedings became harder to find. Public conversation faded.

According to Kenya’s Technical Working Group on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide, 1,639 femicide cases were recorded between 2022 and 2024, marking a 10 per cent increase. More than three-quarters of the victims were killed by people they knew, often intimate partners.

Yet despite the scale of the crisis, the national response often arrives in bursts of outrage rather than sustained action.

Part of the problem is institutional. Investigations into gender-based violence cases can stall for months.

But part of the problem is also cultural. Public attention bow operates at platform speed. Stories trend quickly, peak quickly and disappear quickly.

The media also plays a role in reinforcing this pattern. Coverage often peaks at the moment of death, when headlines are freshest and the details most shocking.

But follow-up reporting rarely receives the same attention. Investigations, prosecutions and convictions often disappear from coverage long before cases are concluded. Updates are buried deep inside publications or not reported at all.

Even language softens the reality.

Terms like “domestic dispute” or “crime of passion” can blur the violence at the centre of these cases.

This is partly an editorial problem, but it is also an economic one.

Newsrooms operate in a digital environment where traffic matters. And traffic follows outrage.

Long-term reporting on court proceedings, policy reform or survivor support systems is harder to sustain because it attracts less engagement.

Overlay this with social media algorithms and the problem deepens.

Platforms reward content that emotional and highly shareable. Slower conversations around legal reform, shelter funding and survivor support struggle to compete.

Visibility becomes tied to engagement rather than public importance.

Even policy debates now follow the same cycle. The recent proposal for chemical castration for perpetrators of sexual assault against children and persons with disabilities generated intense reactions online and across talk shows.

But less dramatic proposals receive far less attention. Recommendations such as recognising femicide as a distinct offence, ending informal settlements like maslaha in criminal cases, restoring funding for shelters and declaring femicide a national crisis rarely dominate headlines.

Yet these are the conversations most tied to structural change.

Meanwhile, survivors continue living with the consequences long after public attention has shifted.

Breaking this cycle will require more than awareness campaigns or viral hashtags.

Media attention cannot end at the moment violence becomes headline news. It has to continue through investigations, arrests, prosecutions and court outcomes, even when those updates attract less traffic.

Newsrooms will also need clearer editorial approaches to reporting on gender-based violence and AI-driven digital ecosystems.

newsdesk@standardmedia.co.ke