When filmmaker Abdi Mohamed wanted to debunk rumors that Somalis didn’t care about Renee Good’s death, he knew just where to go.
His video of Somalis distributing free sambusas and chai to ICE protesters got more than 4,200 likes on Instagram after it was shared on the account Somalisnaps, the Minneapolis-based marketing account that aims to unite and inform East African immigrants around the world.
“It’s the go-to spot for our community,” said Mohamed, who is also a communications specialist at the University of Minnesota and curates cultural events across the Twin Cities. “It’s a source in this time of desperation for setting the record straight.”
The platform, which also posts on TikTok and Snapchat, was founded in 2019 by Mohamed Jedi, an IT specialist who originally wanted to create an online gathering place where fellow Somalis could swap jokes, share memes and plug events.
The project became more news driven in 2020, after George Floyd’s murder. Then ICE arrived. In the past 10 days, Somalisnaps has added 60,000 followers on Instagram, bringing its total to more than 175,000. Its TikTok account boasts more than 116,000 followers.
“People are confused, people are worried,” Jedi, 36, of Minneapolis said on Jan. 15. “They’re scared and can’t go to work, so they’re turning to social media.”
You can find nonpolitical content at Somalisnaps, like clips of Moroccan goalkeeper Yassine Bounou bonding with his son, and singer Kiin Jaamac performing at the Amaal Event Center in Minneapolis. But the vast majority of recent postings are self-produced clips of immigrants confronting ICE officers, responding to identification checks with unfiltered language.
Jedi and his two partners, who are based in Ohio and Somalia’s capital city of Mogadishu, try to verify as much as they can, but a few of the contributions, like a wild story about President Donald Trump’s past, seem dubious.
