Verashni Pillay wins appeal over hate speech ruling

Former editor-in-chief of Huffington Post South Africa Verashni Pillay has succeeded in her appeal against a hate speech ruling around the controversial blog she published on the news website earlier this year.

“The ruling of the Press Ombud dated 22 April 2017 that the blog published by the Huffington Post South Africa on 13 April April 2017 titled ‘Could it be time to deny white men the Franchise?’ violated articles 5.1 and 5.2 of the Press Council Code, is hereby set aside,” reads Pillay’s letter of appeal.

The former editor-in-chief came under fire earlier this year after publishing an opinion piece by a writer who did not exist.

The opinion piece advocated for white men to lose the right to vote, and was reportedly very popular on the site. However, when Cape Town editor and writer Laura Twiggs investigated the supposed author of the opinion piece, Shelley Garland, it emerged that she appeared to be a fake online construction.

Garland had earlier been described as an “MA Philosophy Student” and her Twitter bio said she was a “perpetual feminist causing the retreat of patriarchy”, and lived in Auckland, New Zealand.

Twiggs could, however, not find any records of her at the University of Johannesburg, where she claimed to have studied. She had also claimed to be a University of Cape Town student.

Huffpost SA later took down the column, and editor Verashni Pillay wrote: “We have done this because the blog submission from an individual who called herself Shelley Garland, who claimed to be an MA student at UCT, cannot be traced and appears not to exist.”

The column led to calls for her to resign, which she eventually did, but has now appealed the ruling.

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