Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the multiple conspiracy theories that surround Al Shabaab's continuing insurgency across a fragmented Somalia, and at the same time considers how the structures of the Somali-language digital public allow for their emergence, circulation and deployment by elite political actors.

Paper long abstract:

Al Shabaab's extensive clandestine networks across and beyond a fragmented Somalia lend themselves well to local crypto-political interpretations of their alleged role and utility for a variety of different political actors. Various groups or administrations have periodically accused each other of secretly supporting Al Shabaab's militancy for different territorial or clan-based agendas. This occurs within the context of wider contestation over the ongoing reconfiguration of the Somali state. These conspiracy theories circulate across a digital public characterised by an equally high level of fragmentation, intense social media contestation between supporters of different political projects, and production of various types of 'fake news'. These claims are also periodically appropriated by elite political actors. Given the number of competing administrations - as well as local and foreign military actors with boots on the ground in Somalia - it is unsurprising that the crypto-politics of the Al Shabaab war has become a significant feature of local debates in both on and offline spaces.

This paper draws on the presenter's previous research on these narratives, focusing on Somali-language texts circulating through various interconnected media networks. This then linked to the presenter's preliminary data on some of the effects of algorithms in Somali-language digital platforms: for instance, search engine auto-completion suggestions that foreground particular (and controversial) Somali-language keywords, such as that of actors' 'clan' identity. The paper argues that such algorithmic phenomena need to be examined in relation to online (mis)information sharing and expressions of crypto-politics in digitally-connected conflict settings such as Somalia.