Social media, youth (im)mobilities, and the risks of connectivity in urban Somaliland

Abstract

Young people in cities in the Horn of Africa engage with diasporic mobility through social media on a daily basis. Apparent opportunities on these platforms both reflect and shape ideas about life in the diaspora, potential migration, and social mobility. These connections also bring risks of scamming, extortion and misinformation that contribute to the involuntary immobility of those who wish to move for economic or educational opportunities. Drawing from ‘screen-shot elicitation’ group interviews with young men in Hargeisa (Somaliland) and digital ethnographic investigation of social media content gathered before, during and after these sessions, this article argues that transnational flows of mobility-related information need to be studied from the perspective of people within contexts commonly understood as ‘sources’ of south-north migration, but beyond policy-orientated questions about the impact of ICTs on rates of migration. Emphasising the highly ambivalent role played by social media in shaping aspirations and experiences of youth (im)mobility, this approach brings into view a wider range of socially significant online practices. These include the transnational assemblage of elaborate digital scamming techniques, as well as multiple other types of mobility-focused user-generated content that circulate in transnational Somali social (media) networks.

Keywords:

• Social media
• migration
• ICTs
• cyber-crime
• immobility
• Somaliland
• Somalia

Introduction

Expanding digital connectivity is seen as a crucial factor shaping global networks and patterns of human mobility (Dekker and Engbersen 2014). Accelerating in the wake of the so-called ‘European refugee crisis’, research in this area has been informed by the realisation that migrants often use information and communications technologies (ICTs) such as (smart)phones and social media extensively throughout their journeys, and that these devices and platforms condition experiences of mobility in multiple ways (Leurs and Smets 2018). Research in this area has often focused on the use of ICTs/social media by migrants en route, or after their arrival in (northern) destination countries. By contrast, this article shifts analysis towards social media use among potential migrants within an urbanising global South context – Somaliland – that is a source of outward migration towards Europe, the Gulf states and the wider world. Here, many of the mobility-related affordances of social media – particularly around migration/mobility information sharing and discussion – also impact the lives and aspirations of non (or less) mobile populations.

Empirically, the article contributes analysis of the construction and reception of different types of mobility/migration-related content, focusing on entertainment, romance, and various scamming practices. The latter contribute to the dynamics of ‘involuntary immobility’ theorised by Carling (2002) in relation to those who wish to migrate but lack the necessary resources or connections. Whereas some research attention has been paid to deceptive and extractive digital practices that lead people to make dangerous journeys – for instance through extortive people smuggling/trafficking (Van Esseveld 2019) - less visible online harms that exploit and frustrate people’s desires to move have not been analysed in detail or factored into conceptualisations of involuntary immobility. Various forms and levels of digital literacy thus require consideration in relation to people’s aspirations and capabilities (de Haas 2021) to move and/or avoid migration-linked harms – particularly those whose opportunities for ‘legal’ migration are limited by global inequalities of freedom of movement (Balibar 2009; Van Houtum 2010)

Research questions that attempt to identify causal links between social media connectivity and changes to overall rates of migration are arguably both impractical (due to multidirectional causality) as well as ethically problematic as they inevitably feed into (western) policy narratives that frame migration a priori as a problem that needs to be understood in order to be controlled (Bakewell 2008a). Instead, a more holistic analysis of the role of social media within an already inherently transnational digital public of media production highlights social media platforms’ multiple and ambivalent roles in relation to the opportunities and risks of migration. Ambiguity does not preclude real-world impacts. Social media has a significant bearing on the imaginations, intentions, and well-being of young people around different forms of mobility. Social media scams illustrate the risks of mobility-related digital harms for non-mobile populations. As with ‘undocumented migration’, the African continent is frequently framed in policy-focused analyses simply as a source of a problem (cybercrime) that affects the global North, whereas the socio-economic impacts of ‘low-level’ digital harms within African societies remain largely unexplored.

This article first positions itself in relation to a diverse range of research on the relationships between ICT connectivity, mobility and digital opportunities/risks. It surveys the dominant geographical and policy-orientated vantage points from which these relationships have been explored, and shows what can be gained from a focus on the everyday and ubiquitous transnationalism of digital culture in Hargeisa, Somaliland. This research site is then contextualised as a globalised post-war urban city, connected to various transnational media and mobility dynamics within the region and throughout the global Somali diaspora. A novel qualitative approach to studying mobility-related social media in this context – ‘screenshot elicitation’ group interviews - is then outlined, along with its relationship to digital ethnographical engagement with a wider sample of social media content examined before, during and after the in-person fieldwork. The empirical sections focus on participants’ perspectives on particular kinds of entertaining, romance-based and aspirational content related to global mobility. Three apparent mobility scams are then analysed through digital ethnographic investigation as complex and transnational assemblages of user-generated content. These online practices and content engage prominent local discourses around mobility and opportunity-seeking on digital platforms. However, they may produce a harmful form of involuntary immobility that has not yet been addressed in wider research on social media and migration, or international cybercrime.

Transnational digital connectivity and migration studies

Research on diasporic digital media has traditionally focused on recently-arrived or longstanding migrant communities in ‘host’ countries, and these groups’ multifaceted connections with ‘homelands’ (Bernal 2014; Brinkerhoff 2009; Diminescu 2008; Georgiou 2006; Hiller and Franz 2004; Madianou and Miller 2013; Oiarzabal and Reips 2012). There are fewer studies of the impact of ICTs on the understandings of – and aspirations for – mobility of people within what are often known as migrant ‘sending’ countries. An early exception was Tall’s (2004) discussion of the mobile phones, televisions and camcorders sent or brought back by emigres to rural Senegal and their impact on villagers’ worldviews and international connections, a process he described as ‘globalisation of the domestic realm from the bottom up’ (2004, 44). Also focused on Senegal, Schapendonk and Van Moppes (2007) examined the role of similar technologies in disseminating (often misleading) images of Europe that influenced young people’s intentions to emigrate. Burrell’s work on cybercafes in Ghana similarly illustrated how ICTs ‘shaped the yearning for foreign contacts, travel experiences, and an entrenched notion of success as related to one’s ties to abroad and to one’s global mobility’ (Burrell 2012, 7). These studies predated the wider smartphone and social media boom across the African continent, which potentially intensify these links and cultural flows.

Research in the Somali context has identified the role of social media in maintaining practical and affective connections between migrants and those who remain behind (Ali 2016; Dahya and Dryden-Peterson 2017), or those who are attempting to migrate out of the Horn of Africa (Leurs 2014). Journalistic accounts have also emphasised the importance of digital platforms in facilitating flows of information and digital content between diaspora locations and the Horn of Africa, and the impact of this on local imaginations of what life is like for those who have migrated (Mohamed 2015). Here, images of ‘paradise’ abroad projected by the diaspora on platforms like Facebook or Instagram potentially give false impressions to young people in the Somali territories. After all, social media users everywhere often carefully curate their content and project particular kinds of positive images for purposes of ‘self-branding’ (Hearn 2008; Leppänen et al. 2015). Gössling and Stavrinidi (2016), through analysis of their own social media networks, conceptualise ‘liquid identity’ formation framed around mobility as a desirable signifier of an individual’s network capital and social status. This presumably also applies to the online content generation of diasporic communities and those people who have successfully crossed dangerous and discriminatory borders. This is evident in debates about ‘refugee selfies’ and the extent to which this content constitutes an agential form of self-representation or instead enables the othering of mobile populations whose ‘genuine’ vulnerability is questioned by a racializing (western) media gaze (Chouliaraki 2017; Risam 2018). Nonetheless, there are currently few empirical studies that explore how such transnational online content informs digital cultures within the global South, and (im)mobile populations’ aspirations and opportunities for mobility.

Roos Breines, Raghuram, and Gunter's (2019) do, however, highlight how transnational connectivity can itself facilitate voluntary immobility. In their study of students in Namibia and Zimababwe distance-learning at a South African university, the authors propose an approach to understanding immobility that moves beyond focus on the lack of resources to move. In their case, although students’ transnational engagement with (educational) opportunities depended on numerous other people’s mobility, ICT infrastructures enabled individuals’ choices to stay at home and access desirable resources remotely. This contrasts with the concept of ‘involuntary immobility’ which was introduced by Carling’s (2002) study of potential migrants in Cape Verde. Accounting for different forms of immobility, Carling emphasises the importance of distinguishing people’s preferences (to move) ‘from the structural constraints on their actions’ (2002, 9), and the multiple ways that people ascribe meaning to emigration – for instance in the difference between one ‘signalling a culturally defined notion of proactivity’ and ‘reflecting a personal stance with respect to one’s future’ (2002, 16). De Haas’ more recent ‘aspirations capabilities framework’ (2021) draws from the work of development scholar Amartya Sen and attempts to theoretically bridge structural/agentic-focused approaches in migration studies, while also accounting for the complexity of different motivations and constraints around (im)mobility highlighted in Carling’s work. De Haas defines ‘human mobility’ not as the ‘act of moving or migrating itself’ but rather ‘people’s capability to choose where to live, including the option to stay’ (2021, 1). The present study considers this ability to make choices in relation to the affordances (Nagy and Neff 2015) of digital platforms (what people can do with/on them) and the types of content that they engage with.

My empirical case foregrounds young men’s perspectives and experiences of both voluntary and involuntary immobility through digital platforms. Here, consideration of how connectivity relates to immobility (however this is perceived by those affected) makes for a useful counterpoint to a more prevalent focus on how technologies may enable, encourage and increase cross-border movement. Identifying unidirectional causal links between overall increased digital connectivity and higher rates of migration is a problematic endeavour. Empirically, accounting for multi-directional causality is challenging (Chonka and Haile 2020) and research from East Asia has shown how economic growth and rural-urban migration can create feedback loops that simultaneously drive increased mobility and ICT access (Cartier, Castells, and Qiu 2005; Wallis 2013; Hübler 2016). Research here grapples with ‘chicken or egg’ questions: do ICTs accelerate economic transformations by providing resources and tools for people to move to capitalise on economic opportunities? (Muto 2012; Onitsuka and Hidayat 2019) Or is it economic growth (caused by other factors) that enables people to access new technologies? Historically, emigration rates have been shown to increase alongside economic growth (Castles, De Haas, and Miller 2013; Skeldon 2014); and ICT access often expands simultaneously, making it difficult to isolate the role of digital technologies in contributing to migration.

Regardless, this central dynamic – a link between economic growth in developing countries and increased outward migration – runs contrary to a logic of western policy-making that often frames responses to undocumented migration in terms of ‘development’ and the paternalistic colonial notion that aid can and should be targeted to reduce outward mobility (Bakewell 2008a). The ‘European refugee crisis’ and further hardening of borders has reinforced this, prompting ethical concerns from researchers that positioning studies of the impact of ICTs on migration rates may reproduce policy narratives grounded in the a priori assumption that south-north migration is undesirable and needs to be understood in order to be managed (Bak Jørgensen 2021).

Research focus on the mobility-enabling aspects of ICT access has often been driven by scholars sympathetic to the circumstances of forced migrants negotiating ‘fortress Europe’, highlighting the empowering aspects of digital connectivity for marginalised migrant populations in circumventing border restrictions and navigating dangerous crossings and people smuggling networks. Mobile phones and social media are used by migrants to leverage networks of social ties (Dekker and Engbersen 2014) and to gather journey and arrival/settlement information (Charmarkeh 2013; Frouws et al. 2016). Increasingly, however, research highlights the burdens, power imbalances or risks associated with connectivity in contexts of forced migration (Borkert, Fisher, and Yafi 2018; Chouliaraki 2017; Madianou 2019), for instance in the capture of migrants’ data within state surveillance and border control regimes (Brekke and Staver 2019; Latonero and Kift 2018). Awad and Tossell (2019), meanwhile, focus on the emotional burdens of social media for Syrian refugees in the Netherlands, brought by the sharing of traumatic content from a conflicted homeland, or the pressures of family expectations (for updates or remittances) intensified by the continuous reachability that these platforms enable and encourage. These accounts often challenge the purported empowering potential of technologies for marginalised populations’ mobility. Although some scholars have examined ICT-enabled migration risks such as human-trafficker ransoming en route (Van Esseveld 2019), there remains little research on how all of this digital activity is viewed, understood by, or affects people who remain in migrant ‘sending’ countries.

As a recent semi-systematic review of academic literature on social media, mobile phones and migration in Africa has emphasised (Stremlau and Tsalapatanis 2022), strong empirical evidence is lacking for social media’s role in either encouraging or discouraging migration, either through content emphasising ‘greener pastures’ or state-sponsored anti-migration media campaigns highlighting dangers and difficulties. While this article contributes to that evidence gap, it does so in a way that emphasises the ambiguities of the impacts of social media on imaginations, aspirations and plans for mobility. A departure from focus on whether technology transforms or increases/decreases migration – as often dictated by the needs, desires and research-funding of policy-makers (Bakewell 2008b) - can bring into view a wider range of important digital engagements that relate to (im)mobility. For example, looking beyond digitally-mediated people smuggling/trafficking, there is a broader variety of cyber-criminality, extortion or scamming that may be more relevant and ubiquitous in the everyday digital engagements of social media users in a city such as Hargeisa.

A research gap exists here too. Literature on cyber-crime in African contexts has predominantly looked at scam/trickster economies in West Africa and their connections to unwitting victims located in the global North (Atta-Asamoah 2009; Burrell 2008; Ojedokun and Eraye 2012; Warner 2011). As with the framing of undocumented migration, policy-focused analyses discuss the African continent solely as a source of crime (Europol 2018) rather than being a location where people are victims of digital harms. Recent media reporting has highlighted the integral role of social media platforms for local and transnational con-artists, cumulatively extracting potentially huge sums of money from African economies and users who may have only recently started accessing the Internet (BBC 2020; Madung 2020). However, with the exception of Beek’s work (Beek 2019, 2020) on transnational ‘multi-level marketing’ scams in Ghana and Kenya, there is little academic research on these phenomena and their wider social or economic impacts. Meanwhile, policy-orientated research on African young people’s digital literacies and vulnerabilities characteristically focuses on dangers of extremist/terrorist recruitment and people’s susceptibility to (political or security-related) misinformation (Cox et al. 2018; Wasserman and Madrid-Morales 2019). The examples analysed below demonstrate young people’s often nuanced and critical understandings of social media content, while also highlighting various risks they are exposed to. As the analysis of particular scams illustrates, these intersect with wider debates about mobility, misinformation and digital literacy in conflict and displacement affected regions.

Hargeisa: mediated mobility in a transnational Somali city

Hargeisa - capital of the independent (but unrecognized) Republic of Somaliland – is a major economic hub in the northwest of the Horn of Africa and has been a site for previous studies exploring large-scale undocumented youth outward migration (Ali 2016). Somaliland broke away from Somalia in 1991 following a civil war that had left the city in ruins and displaced the majority of its population. Over the last three decades, Somaliland has become a functioning de facto independent state (Bradbury 2008) and its capital city is emblematic of its physical, economic and political reconstruction. As an outwardly booming regional trade centre, Hargeisa has grown rapidly since the early 2000s. Its downtown skyline of high-rise hotels, malls, telecom and remittance company headquarters are signs of Somali diaspora mobility, return, financial support and investment (Ahmed 2000, Lindley 2009, Majid 2018), as are the billboards that advertise businesses catering to ‘returnee’ (or diaspora-influenced) trends and desires. Hargeisa is Somaliland’s political capital and many politicians (like the elite business community) have spent time in the diaspora (Ismail 2011). Although the return migration of people from the diaspora is a feature of urban growth across the Somali territories (Horst 2018), Somaliland’s post-independence narrative of peaceful state and economic reconstruction undoubtedly plays an important role in encouraging many Somalilanders abroad to return either to invest, do business or contribute to civil society and state-building (Hammond 2015, Chonka 2019a). Some come permanently from the diaspora, many having left the region as youngsters during the conflict in the 1980s and 1990s. Others move back and forth, becoming ‘revolving returnees’ (Hansen 2007) involved sporadically in the aforementioned activities, visiting with children during European school holidays, or sending ‘back’ their children for different forms of ‘cultural re-education/rehabilitation’ (Tiilikainen 2011).

Although Hargeisa is city with an extroverted ‘diasporic landscape’ linked to international Somali mobility, (Ciabarri 2011 in Vitturini 2017, 199) many of its inhabitants (often without direct links to the social and financial capital often associated with the diaspora) experience involuntary mobility and frustrated aspirations to travel to pursue opportunities. Despite stability, a growing economy, and substantial tertiary education system, youth unemployment remains a pressing issue in Hargeisa. This contributes to the city’s position as a significant source and node of migration towards Ethiopian or Red Sea routes out of the Horn of Africa (Ali 2016). In the Somali context, the phenomenon of tahriib (undocumented international migration primarily of young people) is multifaceted, complex and evolving (Wasuge 2018). Although remittances are important to households it is problematic to assume that migration is usually organised at a family level as a transnational livelihood strategy (De Haas 2007). In fact, many young migrants depart against the wishes of (or unbeknownst to) their families (Ali 2016). While outward international migration continues from cities like Hargeisa, only a relatively small proportion of people can travel beyond the region, either ‘legally’ or otherwise.

These tensions between urban transnationalism, global connectivity and unequal opportunities for migration make Hargeisa a compelling site for research into youth aspirations for mobility. The city exhibits distinctive characteristics shaped by Somaliland’s independence narrative, while also reflecting wider patterns of diasporic urbanism important elsewhere in the Somali territories in rapidly growing cities such as Mogadishu in Somalia (Bakonyi and Chonka 2023), or Jigjiga, the capital of the Ethiopian Somali Region (Thompson 2017).

The present research sought to explore how diasporic influences in Somali cities are mediated, and the growing role of social media in this context. Various forms of media have long brought themes of migration and disaporic connection into the everyday life of the city. Newspapers, news sites and transnational Somali-language satellite TV broadcast intertwine events in the Somali territories of the Horn with stories relating to important hubs for the Somali diaspora in North America, Europe or the Gulf (Chonka 2019a, 2019b). Internet access is increasingly prevalent here and although available statistics for Somaliland/Somalia generally report only between 2 and 10% Internet penetration (Chonka and Haile 2020, 5) such figures may not be indicative of the wider prevalence online access, particularly in urban areas. Significant class, generational and urban/rural divides exist (there is limited local data on gendered divides) and this partly explains why the initial cohort engaged with in this research were known to have higher levels of access - young male university or secondary school graduates. The Internet and social media in Hargeisa are now primarily accessed through increasingly affordable smartphones and mobile data. Like other African countries, Facebook remains a dominant platform (Parks and Mukherjee 2017) and was described as such by research participants. Other platforms mentioned frequently were WhatsApp for private/group chats, Instagram for photo sharing, and YouTube for watching/uploading videos.

The research embarked with the assumption that social media platforms intensify the existing entanglement of local and diasporic media content and contribute to the increasing ubiquity of images of global mobility, and potentially facilitate new types of connection, transnational activity and movement. A huge range of social media content may be relevant here. Evident in the data collected for this paper (as in my wider engagement in Somali language social media spaces) was content from diaspora/returnee ‘influencers’; reportage and travelogues from international (Somali) journalists, ‘viral’ videos or youth-orientated YouTube channels on long-distance romance, and public or private postings and discussions of specific mobility-linked opportunities for jobs or education.

‘Screenshot elicitation’ group interviews and digital ethnography

In researching how this content is engaged with by young people in Hargeisa I developed ‘screenshot elicitation’ as a novel qualitative method. Inspired by ‘photovoice’ – where research participants use cameras to represent aspects of their social reality (Wang and Burris 1997) - screenshot elicitation involves research participants capturing, sharing and discussing screenshots of their daily social media use. With photovoice, images provide opportunities for visual self-representation, structuring interviews and eliciting oral testimonies. In mobilities research, photovoice’s anti-objectivist epistemology of vision and its participant-driven character have been seen to potentially mitigate ‘epistemic injustice’ in researcher/subject relations and generate insights into representations and embodied practices relating to mobility infrastructures (Butz and Cook 2018, 238). Social media is an ‘infrastructure’ of migration facilitating of flows of information that enable (or restrict) mobility (Xiang and Lindquist 2014). In this social media-focused adaptation of photovoice, participants’ screenshots of their platform use play an analogous role to photographs in eliciting individual and group reflections.

Using research participants’ online traces within interviews is not entirely new (Dobson 2012). Other researchers have taken screenshots of interviewees’ social media profiles to contextualise discussions (Marwick and Boyd 2014). In my adaptation, however, the participants chose what screenshots to take and share, based on an initial group discussion of the topic. This draws more from participatory visual methods like photovoice in that the screenshots provide opportunities for participants to actively shape discussions. It shares features of Robards and Lincoln (2019) ‘short snapshot scroll back’ method, where participants independently go through their past social media activity to identify relevant posts. In screenshot elicitation, participants had more time to consider the questions (a week) and although they could ‘scroll back’, most captured images of public social media content that they came across in that period.

The screenshot-elicitation group interviews were conducted in January 2020. 13 young men were identified in collaboration with a national NGO focused on youth unemployment, two of whose staff also participated in the group discussions. The screenshot-sharing participants were all either high school or university graduates under the age of 30 who had previously participated in the NGO’s activities (Table 1). All sessions were conducted at a tech innovation hub by myself and a Hargeisa-based visual artist¹ (in Somali, without an interpreter). In an initial whole group-discussion we explained the method and introduced the topic of the research. Participants were asked to take screenshots over the week that they felt reflected aspects of this (or new, relevant insights). In preparation for the follow-up discussions, participants shared five screenshots each via WhatsApp. In the second sessions, smaller groups of participants together looked the images and each person explained the meaning of the images to them. These screenshots elicited further questions from the researchers, and discussion between the participants.²

Table 1. Overview of research participants .

Alias	Background: Education/employment	Additional notes
Hassan	University student (ICT)
Rooble	University student (public administration)
Muhyadin	University student (faculty unspecified)
Said	University graduate (small business owner/founder)
Muuse	University graduate (national NGO staff member)
Deeq	University student (design)
Abdiqani	University student (computer science)	Studies in Asia, was in Somaliland at time of research.
Abdihakim	University graduate (graphic designer)
Samatar	University graduate (national NGO staff member)
Harun	University student (faculty unspecified)
Abdilaahi	University student (engineering)
Abdilatif	University graduate (engineering)
Saleban	High school graduate (unemployed)
Daud	University graduate (national NGO staff member)
Dahir	University graduate (poet/online 'influencer’)	Significant social media presence (400,000+ followers on Facebook)
Mohamed	University graduate (engineering)	Did not participate in group interviews. Was in previous and subsequent contact with researcher - sharing and discussing apparent migration scams.

The young men all fit into a demographic group commonly associated with tahriib migration – educated, young, male job-seekers with some access to personal/family resources (Ali 2016). Given the personal nature of social media interactions, and considerations of local cultural/religious norms around gender relations, I - as a foreign, non-Muslim, male researcher - anticipated that many young women would not necessarily feel comfortable openly discussing a range of topics linked to social media. The use of groupchats for researcher/participant contacts may also been problematic.

The piloting of the method raised novel ethical considerations, some relating to traditional interview/focus group data collection, others shared by photovoice and digital ethnographies.³ It was important to consider the limitations for informed consent from other people whose identities may be revealed in the participants’ screenshots. This is a general issue for digital ethnographies on platforms where public/private distinctions are blurred (Fuchs 2018). As a group we discussed privacy settings and expectations across different platforms and the necessity for everyone to consider potential harms to an individual of sharing their data with a researcher. Although participants were not told which platforms they could or should take screenshots from, the vast majority of images were of public content. Images or quotes from private fora (e.g. groupchats) were not reproduced in publications. All participant and personal screenshot data is pseudonymised here through removing (user)names or profile pictures.

There is increasing scholarly recognition of the centrality of digital platforms to interviewees’ lives, and new connections that these may enable between external, mobile researchers like myself and these contacts (Carrier 2019; Dalsgaard 2016; Postill and Pink 2012). My own social media connections with existing contacts in Somaliland inspired the design of the present research, as well as the digital ethnographic investigation that supplemented the screenshot elicitation. I have been working and doing research in Somaliland (on and off) since 2009 when I was employed by the University of Hargeisa. Contact with former students, colleagues, and interviewees has been maintained through social media interaction between research trips. It was through former students contacting me on social media that I first became aware of mobility-related social media scams. The second empirical section below focuses on different digital scam practices: one that was brought to my attention before fieldwork (inspiring the study); one that was raised by the screenshot elicitation participants themselves; and one that emerged on Somali social media after I conducted the group interviews. This digital ethnographic investigation sheds light on the use of opportunities for mobility as a trope in this kind of social media content, the construction of elaborate scams across multiple platforms and locations, and various ways in which a wider range of Somali social media users engage with or understand such postings, as evidenced by ‘like/share’ metrics and comments.

Upward/outward mobility in a transnational mediascape

Social mobility in Hargeisa – the ability to earn a good living, study, do business, marry– was frequently connected by the young men who participated in the research with ideas of international mobility. Asking participants if they thought that there were links between social media and migration, several expressed frustrations with youth unemployment in Somaliland and contrasted this with seeing ‘self-sufficient’ young Somalis abroad on social media. Muuse⁴, a university-educated young man who works for the aforementioned local NGO, spoke about the impact of social media content sharing between friends separated by migration:

When a person is using social media and his friend has immigrated illegally, after a long journey when he [the friend] arrives in Italy, he takes pictures of himself and posts them on social media. His friend [back home] sees the pictures and wants to go there. But his [migrated] friend will not tell him about the hard moments he experienced, and he only sees what a beautiful place he is in. So his friend thinks he should go there too. Maybe […] people who were already getting by in their life [in Somaliland] may change their views and decide to go. This causes some of them to die in the sea, some to be held by people smugglers and beaten by them before they are released. Some of them may be shot dead after trying to escape.

Screenshots shared by participants prompted the groups to discuss different types of social media content from the diaspora that influences young people’s perceptions of life abroad. Although participants often recognized the tendency for all social media users to carefully construct positive images of themselves (not necessarily reflective of their actual circumstances), the power of visual media from the diaspora was frequently apparent. Deeq, a student at a local design academy, spoke about this in relation to an Instagram post entitled ‘Somali relationship goals’:

Deeq: This is an Instagram account and it is about Somali couples in the diaspora […]

Researcher: Have you ever spent time abroad?

Deeq: No, but I dream about being in the diaspora. This picture is among the things that push us to emigrate […] Videos from Somali couples are posted here.

Researcher: When you see pictures like this, how do you feel?

Deeq: It would be better to be there. When you see happy young people who live in their own homes and are self-sufficient, it drives us to think about migration.

Researcher: Do you know anyone in the diaspora? A family member or friend?

Deeq: Yes.

Researcher: Do you know these people who pose in the photos?

Deeq: No, but it is popular - using Snapchats and posting videos.

Researcher: What do you know about the situation of the diaspora from these photos?

Deeq: They tell us it is beautiful, and I think it is like this.

Researcher: Do you think it is a full picture of their situation?

Deeq: I think their life is better than ours and that I would have more opportunities if I was there.

Other participants had different views. Abdihakim, a recent university graduate, emphasized how social media content from recent migrants or members of the diaspora was increasingly showing the less positive sides of migration:

Society has understood the perils and are not thinking the same way they did in the past. The thinking was that if you reach Europe, your life will be complete and unemployment benefits will be given to you. That is why they take all these risks and say ‘do or die’. The feeling that reaching Europe they are in paradise has now diminished. They realized that this was just imagination after they saw friends who migrated and the experience did not meet their expectations. [They now feel] that studying and working is how you earn a living. They say, why should you go through all these risks if you are going to work, and that you may get unemployment benefit, but it won’t last long? That is why the perception of migration is changing. Social media has contributed to this awareness. Previously, people used to migrate blindly without thinking about what is ahead of them and only expecting that they will live a better life, that they will send money back to their family, and will buy land. When they realized that this is fake and does not reflect the reality, people started to choose work in the country over migrating to Europe.

‘Awareness raising’ amongst young people in cities like Hargeisa on the dangers of tahriib has been a prominent activity amongst civil society groups, public intellectuals, artists, and national/international NGOs. Reflecting on this, Dahir (a university graduate, poet and self-described ‘influencer’ with a significant following) indicated that the allure of migration nonetheless persisted: ‘the feeling of the person who sees the things that people abroad post [on social media] is still more powerful than all of this, even though people still talk about the negative effects of migration.’

The young men also discussed the more practical uses of social media for facilitating tahriib. Although none of the participants had direct experience, some spoke of initial contacts that could be made on WhatsApp with people smuggling networks (magafe) in Somaliland. They also discussed the role of images, video and message sharing for smugglers’ extortion of money from families of migrants. The detention and abuse of migrants in transit countries such as Libya has been well documented (Hayden 2019). Migrants are often subject to violence until they can raise additional sums to secure their release and onward passage (e.g. across the Mediterranean). Daud, an NGO staff-member, noted that images of this abuse would circulate on social media and/or be sent directly to families to pressure them to transfer money:

A reason why they [smugglers] use WhatsApp is that previously you might unknowingly ignore a video of family member being tortured by smugglers circulating on social media sites, but now your son will be beaten, and now they are contacting you directly.

Targeted communication for ransom payments is dependent on ICT infrastructure: not only for the transmission of media content but payments themselves (Chonka and Bakonyi 2021). The role of digital networks in enabling violent extortion over distance was not captured in earlier literature on digitally-mediated migration (Dekker and Engbersen 2014; Frouws et al. 2016), particularly in relation to effects on family members in countries of origin. Most of the participants perceived that the number of people leaving Somaliland to go on tahriib towards Europe was decreasing, primarily due to increased difficulties travelling through transit countries, or increased awareness in society about the dangers.

Whether young people are actively considering migration, images of mobility and global connection are ubiquitous in a transnational everyday of Somali-language social media content. Previous research shows how professional news media networks - remediated through social media platforms - create a global Somali digital public of debate and shared or contested identity (Chonka 2019a, 2019b). The current research highlights the increasing importance of non-professional user-generated content and live video for increasing the prevalence of narratives and opportunities around global mobility. One participant spoke at length about the broadcasting of a series of Facebook Live videos from the diaspora that aimed at connecting young Somalis looking for romantic/marriage partners all over the world (Figures 1). An English translation of the title would be ‘Seekers of luck/fate’, and this show was described by Rooble, a civil service trainee:

This man connects the people who are looking for partners. You call that number below. He broadcasts it live every Sunday night. Girls communicate with him. He links them. He is in Germany[…] People call the program […]. For example, if she’s a girl, she asks to be connected to a man with some characteristics: e.g. not addicted to drugs, goes to the gym, is in a specific country like Canada, Somaliland, of a specific age. She asks to be connected a man with such characteristics, and the boys call and ask to be connected with [the kind of] girls they want. This guy, who runs the program, writes these descriptions and then connects those who have [things] in common […]. For instance, the girl might be in Canada and the boy might be in Somaliland. He connects them with each others’ mobile numbers. So they communicate that way. If they agree, that is how they get married […]

Others noted that the host of the show was originally from Somaliland and had migrated to Europe. Participants believed that he struggled to find a job in Germany and therefore started pursuing social media broadcasting, appealing to global Somali youth tastes. As Rooble explained:

Some take it seriously and marry each other while others take it as entertainment and joke. A friend of mine married a girl in Canada through that way, and she brought him there, now they have kids.

This live-streamed diasporic content is consumed in various ways by dispersed audiences. Humor blurs with potentially tangible opportunities for physical mobility, simultaneously and explicitly tying together different global Somali networks through user-generated content across various platforms. Here the presentation of ‘liquid identity’ (Gössling and Stavrinidi 2016) is premised on implicit migration opportunities both for social media users who have experienced global mobility, or aspire to this - even through casual and entertainment-focused engagement with digital content.

Figure 1. Screenshot of livestreamed social media match-making show.

Digital harms and involuntary immobility: three social media cases

The previous section highlighted social media’s role in the daily transnational experiences of young men in Hargeisa, and its influence on imaginations, aspirations and tangible opportunities for mobility. Dangers were also raised, such as the use of social media in migrant ransoms. This section focuses on three cases of lower profile – albeit serious – digital harms, which constitute unscrupulous and/or extractive practices that foreground mobility opportunities. I identified these different types of content/practice through social media contacts prior to the field-work (case 1); examples raised during the screenshot elicitation interviews (case 2); and cases that gained notoriety on Somali social media shortly after the fieldwork (case 3). Unlike much of the existing research on digital connectivity and (risky) mobility, these practices affect those who are involuntarily immobile.

Case 1: International employment/visa scamming

In mid-2019, Mohamed⁵, a student I knew from the University of Hargeisa, asked through Facebook for my thoughts on an apparent mobility opportunity he had come across on that platform. The post offered Canadian work visas and promoted a website for a hospitality recruitment company. Examination indicated that the website was fake, with content copied directly what appeared to be a legitimate recruitment firm. The copycat site used an accessible blogging platform and the physical addresses listed were the same as the legitimate company (enabling tracing of the source of the copied content). Crucially, the phone numbers and email contacts on the dubious site were different. Mohamed had already contacted the Facebook posters and was subsequently told to communicate privately via WhatsApp. In these WhatsApp (and email) conversations he was sent a generic Canadian Visa application form and instructions to transfer money (187 Euros) to an account in Paris. After he challenged the scammers, they insisted their company was genuine, sending photoshopped images of airline boarding passes and pictures purporting to be from their Toronto office. These images likely came from the address listed for the genuine recruitment company from which their website content was copied.

The initial Facebook post was made in August 2019. It has subsequently been removed although it is unclear whether this was done by Facebook moderators or the poster themselves. By September 2019, it had received 565 comments from people interested in obtaining a Canadian work visa. The commenters were primarily Somali-speakers (in Somalia, Somaliland and Ethiopia) and social media users in South Sudan, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Virtually none of the comments expressed skepticism about the accuracy of the post or the legitimacy of the company. After each comment the scammers instructed people to contact them by WhatsApp. Judging by the comments, it is likely that many people would have taken this step, though it is impossible to determine how many transferred money.

Case 2: Like-bait ‘competitions’ and mobility prizes

The screenshot elicitation group interviews also highlighted links between mobility aspirations, digital media ‘literacy’ and potential online harms. Two participants shared images of an apparently common type of social media ‘competition’. Hassan, a university ICT student, described this (Figure 2):

There are pages like the BBC Somali page in which youth are asked to test their luck. They are asked to complete some requirements: that they like and share the page and choose a number, and they will be rewarded with prizes displayed there like money, visas, the latest Samsung and iPhone mobiles. The youth are asked other things [such as leaving their phone number].

His screenshot showed a recent post (by a group called ‘BBC news somali fans’) that had been shared 1306 times and received 1000 ‘likes’.

Following the discussions, I examined several Facebook pages that regularly feature similar material, scrutinising posts as they went online to see how they spread and were engaged with. Another example was posted by ‘Al-jaziira news somali fans’ (which had become the new name of the aforementioned ‘BBC’ page). Within 24 hours, the post received 193 likes, 920 shares, and 327 comments from Somali-speakers in Kenya, Somalia, Somaliland, Ethiopia, and South Africa. Of these comments, only 11 expressed skepticism at the authenticity of the competition or warned others. Comments usually included users’ phone numbers and their cities/towns. After 2 months, the post had received 1500 likes, 6200+ shares and 3300+ comments. The ‘Al-jaziira news somali fans’ page was ‘liked’ by 39,684 accounts and followed by 42,670 accounts. This represents a large amount of personal data (phone numbers) being posted online, and many users who have some confidence in (likely bogus) online competitions. Hassan’s description of the earlier example indicated that he initially believed that the content was being produced by the BBC Somali Service, the British broadcaster that is widely engaged with in the region. The Facebook page used the BBC logo, and although it was named ‘BBC news somali fans’, it was not clear to him (a university-educated ICT student) that this was distinct from the broadcaster. In the course of the discussion I intimated that this account had no relationship with BBC Somali. ⁶

Ostensibly, these competition ‘like-bait’ posts are different from migration scams in that they do not appear to take money directly from users. Framed around the ‘prize’ of mobility (a visa), they represent an unscrupulous type of social media entrepreneurship and content/traffic monetization. Although this was recognized by some participants, the fact that educated social media users are potentially easily misled about the authenticity and branding of international broadcasters has implications for audiences’ susceptibility to misinformation and other kinds of local financial scamming such as crypto-currency pyramid/ponzi schemes that were often advertised on the same pages.⁷ Hassan indicated that he was now more savvy in his navigation content offering opportunities through competitions:

When I was new to Facebook, I used to respond to many things like this. I used to apply everything I saw. There were many things like posts related to jobs, lotteries, or scholarships that I used to apply to. But now I’ve become an expert who knows the reality, and I might not check such posts now.

Nonetheless, he and other participants noted that many young people continue to engage with this kind of content, either not knowing or not caring that opportunities advertised are unlikely to be genuine. This was confirmed by analysis of the large number of comments on such posts reported above and the ways in which commenters were quite willing to ‘test their luck’.

Case 3: Suspect scholarships and educational immobility

Shortly after fieldwork in 2020, content on social media began promoting a higher education institution based in Mogadishu (Somalia) called the ‘United Nations Academy of Somalia’ (UNAS). Again, I became aware of this through social media contact with former students in Somaliland. UNAS became a relatively high-profile and contentious example of ambiguous and potentially misleading online content purportedly offering mobile educational opportunities (Figure 3).

Figure 2. Screenshot of facebook post from 'BBC news somali fans'.

Figure 3. Screenshot of 'UN Academy of Somalia' homepage.

UNAS had an edu.so web address and a professional-looking website. It described itself as ‘a department of’ another organization called the United Nations Association of Somalia (UNASOM). The latter is listed on the website of the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA)⁸, ‘a global nonprofit organization representing and coordinating a membership of over 100 national United Nations Associations (UNAs) and their thousands of constituents’.⁹ Individual country UNAs are not directly affiliated with the United Nations. UNASOM’s Facebook page promoted the United Nations Academy of Somalia as a higher educational institution with the aim of providing ‘free Postgraduate Education to the Somali youth in their country’.¹⁰

Prospective students who filled out the application were subsequently offered a ‘scholarship’. However, they were then requested to pay a non-refundable $50 ‘application fee’, along with other (unspecified) charges. Communications about UNAS teaching took place mostly on Facebook. UNAS content was being posted as Somalia was beginning to be affected by COVID-19, and posts described online tuition. This advertising included videos from young Europeans/North Americans stating that they would be instructors. Digitally-enabled immobility for purported international teachers (who would apparently teach remotely) enabled UNAS’ construction of a compelling, if misleading, image of educational opportunities.

UNAS claimed to be registered with the Somali Federal Government’s Ministry of Higher Education and its Facebook page showed apparent endorsement from politicians, including a former Prime Minister. A lack of state capacity to regulate universities in Mogadishu (Somalia) means that prospective students are vulnerable to predatory application processes. Analysis of user comments indicated that the branding of UNAS with UN emblems and its affiliation with the ‘United Nations Association of Somalia’ misled many applicants, who believed it had a prestigious international affiliation. UNAS appeared to take advantage of ambiguities in the way in which UNASOM is allowed to present itself as a UN-linked (but private) NGO. I contacted the spokesperson of the United Nations Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), asking about this. The UN has since made media statements distancing itself from UNAS and challenging the use of its logo (Goobjoog News 2020). As prime representative of the ‘international community’ in a conflicted Somalia (and frequent target of attacks by armed actors such as Al Shabaab), the UN is concerned about reputational damage caused by such online content. Since this UN statement, the UNAS website and associated social media accounts have all disappeared.

Discussion: social media and ambiguities of (in)voluntary immobility

The social media environment presents ambiguous and often unverifiable mobility opportunities for young people. The ability of organizations to assemble websites and social media profiles with various types of transnational content allows them to build particular brands that lend apparent authenticity, credibility and prestige. These can result in a frustrating experience of immobility for students who can neither study remotely, nor move to take up a genuine scholarship. This is a counterpoint to Roos Breines, et al. (2019) analysis of digital remote study as an infrastructure of immobility that may be experienced positively by African students pursuing educational goals without the need to move. With regard to all the cases detailed above, feelings of both voluntary and involuntary immobility were expressed by research participants. Some people emphasised their agency in navigating potentially misleading content in ways that made them satisfied with staying in Somaliland. Others pointed out that immobility was not experienced as a choice (for themselves or others), but rather a frustrating disappointment, as they are drawn into potentially exploitative online networks that leverage the desirability of migration to drive online traffic or directly scam users. As with the discussion of social media content highlighting the dangerous/negative aspects of tahriib journeys, research participants were ambivalent about the extent to which the pervasiveness of online scamming reduced young people’s mobility aspirations. There was little contradiction between accepting that social media was full of potentially misleading content, while not abandoning this as a source of mobility information and opportunities. The fact that some of the social media respondents continued to ask me for my opinions on authenticity of similar content after already identifying previous scams indicated that such experiences had hardly diminished their desire to find such opportunities. In De Haas’ ‘aspirations capabilities framework’ the societal significance of mobility is conceptualised not in terms of whether people actually move; but instead in relation to their capacity to choose where to live, including the option to stay. Mobility here is an ‘intrinsic part of broader processes of social change’ (2021, 1). The rapid spread of networked digital technologies globally both reflects and influences these processes, and creates sites where the specific affordances of platforms affect users’ capabilities for mobility. Greater attention should be paid to the everyday transnational digital engagements of young people within countries commonly described as ‘sources’ of South-North migration. However, this should not centre around attempts to show any causal relationship between increases in social media connectivity and quantitative migratory trends. Rather, the cases above highlight the inherently ambiguous roles played by digital platforms in both encouraging/discouraging and enabling/constraining global (enacted and aspirational) mobility. Departing from policy-driven discussions of the impacts of social media on a particular setting or phenomenon allows for more nuanced exploration of a wider range of links between people’s use of digital platforms and their mobility experiences and understandings. Here, multiple forms of user-generated content feed into an already inherently transnational digital public of global Somali media production and affect imaginations and aspirations around different forms of youth mobility.

Conclusion

This research engaged young men through a (mobile) methodological innovation that allowed analysis of some of the ways in which social media is used and experienced in their daily lives. This also enabled participants to use images of their digital lives to represent themselves, and shape our conversations about mobility. Although a small-scale pilot study, observations from the research could inform other studies looking to combine offline and digital ethnographic methods in ways that take into account people’s mobile digital lives, and the role that social media platforms play in creating sustained connections between researchers and participants. Material from the pilot was combined with digital ethnographic investigation of other social media content that emerged through my long-standing (and often digitally-mediated) contact with young people in Hargeisa, as well as material that came to light in the screenshot elicitation sessions themselves.

Analysis of mobility-related social media scams (beyond smuggling, trafficking and extortion) reveals everyday digital risks that have potentially significant implications for societies where internet access is rapidly expanding. In global policy discussions Africa is generally framed solely as a source of cybercrime (similar to undocumented migration), whereas the socio-economic impacts of ‘low-level’ digital scamming on African victims remain largely unexplored. As complex, transnational, cross-platform assemblages of user generated content – the examples highlight a variety deceptive digital practices, the apparent scale of user vulnerabilities, and potential economic impacts of widespread illicit resource extraction via mobility scams. This article makes an initial contribution to filling this research gap, while also highlighting how young people navigate, understand and engage with a transnational everyday of opportunity and risk tied to (restricted) mobility and global diasporic mediascapes.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Cedric Barnes, Anna Rowett, Hannah Stogdon and Magnus Taylor at RVI, and Freddie Carver for our collaboration that put this project into motion. Thanks are also owed the Hargeisa-based photographer and visual artist Mustafe Saeed and staff at Shaqodoon and HarHub for their assistance with the screenshot elicitation group interviews. I am grateful to all of the participants who gave their time and insights in these sessions. Mahad Wasuge/Tayo Translations did excellent work in transcribing and translating the interviews, while Abdirahman Ahmed and Nimo-Ilhan Ahmed Ali gave valuable feedback on an earlier version of the article.

Additional information

Funding

The research for this article was funded by the Rift Valley Institute through the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) programme.

Notes

1 [ANON]

2 Each participant received $50 for their time over the course of the interviews and screenshotting.

3 The research was approved by King's College London's ethical review board (project no. 14607).

4 All participant names are aliases.

5 An alias.

6 I subsequently met staff of the BBC Somali Service in London (February 2020) and drew their attention to this particular account. They indicated that this is a recurring problem.

7 Increased internet access allows scammers to penetrate ever wider social networks, and target communities in low/middle-income countries globally (BBC 2019). Local reporting also suggests that Somalia itself has been affected by international pyramid schemes and that millions of dollars are leaving the country through (online) Forex trading scams (VOA 2020).

8 http://www.unasom.org/

9 https://wfuna.org/ (accessed 21 May 2020)

10 https://www.facebook.com/unasom.org/posts/609745869632536