Hard reality: Kenyans love porn – and gambling

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]nternet users in Kenya have a growing appetite for pornographic content and gambling, according to website traffic sources and ranking site, Similarweb.com.

The world’s top four pornography websites rank higher among Kenyan audiences than their global averages and those of the United States. This implies that traffic to the sites is on an average high in Kenya compared to most countries in the world.

In the category of adult sites, xvideos, xnxx, pornhub, xhamster and locally setup borwap rank as most visited platforms in the 6^th, 7^th, 10^th, 31^st and 41^st positions respectively among local internet users who have been increasing all through. Globally, the xvideos, xnxx, pornhub, xhamster rank 5^th,9^th, 15^th and 32^nd respectively while in the US they are 7^th,8^th, 6^th and 18^th in that order.

Save for Google search engines and Facebook, Betin Kenya and SportPesa sites are ranked in the third and fourth place beating  news and informative sites as well as local media and You Tube. This implies that since Facebook and Google are ever in the first and second place globally, most of the browsing costs for Kenyans go into gambling and the love for hardcore porn.

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Among the top 10 sites, seven comprise of porn (3) and gambling (4), an indication that away from Facebook users, Youtubers and Google searchers, seven in 10 internet users are either striving to analyse possible gamble outcomes or sink into sex content consumption.

Even at a time when e-commerce has become an emerging global trend, Jumia and OLX rankings have dropped a place each to the 13^th and 23^rd place respectively despite massive online digital influencer campaigns. This, however, does not point to a possibility that many Kenyan users are not seeking to shop online, but shows more have moved elsewhere from the shops.

Nation and Standard media news sites rank 14th and 15th respectively while The Star despite its sensational political coverage is at a distant 25^th on SimilarWeb ranking’s traffic analysis.

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The 50 most read sites comprise of at least 20% sports and gambling channels followed by majority adult content sites, handful social networks as Twitter and Facebook with a few Kenyans going for art and entertainment platforms where they are able to watch or download movies, music are related content.

The Similarweb.com ranking of popular porn and gambling sites in Kenya is backed by recent surveys which attribute the trend increasing use of smartphones and mobile digital technology. In a GeoPoll survey of youth between the ages of 17-35 in sub-Saharan Africa, Kenya had the highest number of youth who were frequently gambling.

Experts, however, warn that this is leading more and more youth into bankruptcy and suicidal tendencies.

Addiction to pornography is also increasingly becoming a vice especially among the youth as parents have little control over their children’s gadgets or are too busy with daily hustles to monitor, guide and counsel them, often leaving the critical tasks to teachers and domestic servants.

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