AI, Social Media, and the Law in Africa

Artificial intelligence now shapes what social media users see, say and share, through systems built for retention rather than for rights. This book asks whether African human rights law is equipped to respond. It examines the three rights those systems most directly affect: privacy, which the African Charter does not expressly protect; freedom of expression, well developed in African jurisprudence but never framed with algorithmic gatekeepers in mind; and health, whose connection to automated content curation neither international nor African law has yet addressed. Each is treated according to its stage of development in African jurisprudence, moving from documented harm, through international standards, to the African position. A closing chapter identifies the research gaps and sets out recommendations for regulation and institutional design at national, regional and international levels. The book is written for scholars and postgraduate students of human rights and technology law, for regulators and policy advisers in African Union institutions and national data protection authorities, and for practitioners advising on platform governance. Readers gain a doctrinally grounded framework for applying the instruments that already exist, such as the Banjul Charter, the Malabo Convention, and the 2019 Declaration of Principles on Freedom of Expression, to algorithmic harm, while understanding the regulatory and institutional gaps that require further interventions.