Social media platforms’ inaction also to blame for destruction in SA

The past few weeks have been turbulent in South Africa, to say the least. What annoys me is the blame game that has followed.

An estimated R15 billion in property damaged, wholescale looting and over 200 lives lost. Thousands of jobs lost. The cost of the social damage and mistrust created – incalculable. Everyone is now deciding who should bear the responsibility for the mayhem.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has clearly been shown up by his own Cabinet. The state security apparatus failed completely, forcing community members to protect themselves from the looters and the carnage they brought with them.

Ramaphosa recently made a statement that 12 individuals are being investigated for the roles they played in promoting the violence and lawlessness which our country was subjected to. This strikes me as completely bizarre.

We need to look at the bigger picture. We need to look at those individuals who created the platforms that were used
to sow seeds of destruction.

Social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Instagram have their own security protocols in place but
it seems to me they also have their own viewpoints on what is and isn’t acceptable.

Do they actually enforce their rules in accordance with the constitution of SA?

I took a quick look at the Facebook and Twitter accounts of certain individuals within the ANC radical economic transformation faction and soon realised that they were using these two social media platforms to stoke the fires.

It was also clear that they had their own agendas for fermenting insurrection and anarchy. Their aim, in my opinion was to show Ramaphosa up as a tyrant.

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Yet, those who run these social media platforms and claim to have such strict security protocols in place, did nothing to stop the fanning of the flames spilling out into the real world.

In my opinion, the inaction of the Facebook and Twitter police in the virtual world is just as much to blame for the destruction we have witnessed as the failure of the SA Police Service on the ground.

But God forbid Tannie Sannie tries to advertise a hamper containing Amarula fudge and a bottle of liqueur. That is blocked because it is advertising alcohol for sale. Or if a woman dares to promote breastfeeding by showing pictures of women feeding their babies. She is thrown into “Facebook jail” and told she’s promoting porn.

Where were the same social media police when certain individuals were promoting destruction of property and wholesale thievery? Why weren’t these people also blocked and “jailed”?

Surely part of the job of the social media police is to ensure their users engage on their platforms in a responsible manner?

Lapping is a Democratic Alliance councillor but writes this in his capacity as a concerned South African