State House on Monday September 28, 2020 blacklisted and blocked Deputy President William Ruto and any name associated with him.

This happened during the Facebook livestreaming of Covid-19 conference that was held at Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC), an event that the second in command skipped despite being invited.

Comments containing names like Ruto, DP, William Samoei Ruto, hustler and WSR were blocked in the comments.

The comments of those who tried to comment using the blacklisted names had their comments blocked, with Facebook giving them a notification, “Your comment contains a  blacklisted word”.

The motive behind the decision is not clear.

However, this is not the first time State House is making such a controversy.

In August 2018, pictures posing with UK Prime Minister Theresa May  were deleted from the president’s Facebook account.

The two pictures, which showed DP Ruto shaking hands with Mrs May at State House Nairobi, were only restored after hawk-eyed Kenyans noticed.

More pictures of the DP at the State House function were only released to the DP’s communication team later and his followers started sharing them enthusiastically.

In March this year, photos taken during a Cabinet meeting and uploaded to State House’s social media platforms were deleted.

A dive into the thread after the images were uploaded showed that Kenyans expressed their joy at DP Ruto being present.

Several other remarks by netizens referred to the DP as the fifth president of the Republic of Kenya, noting it was time they heard him address the nation.

It did not take long for netizens to realise the images had been pulled down, not long after they had been posted.