FILE PICTURE: President Jacob Zuma's son Duduzane leaves the Randburg Magistrate's Court on Friday, 22 August 2014. Picture: Werner Beukes/SAPA
It was not altogether unusual to start tweeting only in April 2011, which is when the president’s son decided to try out this Twitter thing.
Twitter has 7.4 million users in South Africa, and is only dwarfed by Facebook, which the South African Social Media Landscape 2016 study revealed “is now used by a quarter of all South Africans”, or roughly 15 million people.
READ MORE: Duduzane Zuma should probably have been prosecuted – report
It is therefore not surprising that, in April 2011, businessman Duduzane Zuma, currently implicated in Gupta-related scandals as revealed in #GuptaLeaks, innocuously announced his arrival on Twitter.
“Greetings to whoever reads this. I have had a Twitter account for a few months now, and this is my first tweet. Clearly not good at this.”
What the businessman did not know was that the social media app is a wilderness, where response is quite often swift and lethal.
“Kinda hard to tweet and loot with Dad at the same time,” a user chirped in.
“Not nearly as good as what you are at organised crime. Your time is coming,” another user took a dig at him.
He was also reminded about the infamous court case in Randburg after plunging into a taxi and killing one passenger.
“You were not so good in pitching at Randburg Magistrates’s Court either & we know you received the subpoena,” he was told.
He was also reminded that should he need assistance, Saxonwold was more than able to help.
“Don’t worry, President Atul will train you,” a user advised.
Duduzane Zuma went into Twitter hibernation.
Bizarrely, his next tweet came only in 2014 and was a retweet of Floyd Shivambu saying: “South Africa, 15 Million People (of 52 million) on Social Grants is not something to celebrate. It’s a sign of economic failure & despair!”
Perhaps Duduzane took the advice and focused more on what he’s good at (clue, it’s not tweeting).
See the tweet and its reactions below:
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