Outrage over fake Twitter rape story
Many have argued that the fabricated story will make it harder for rape survivor's cases to be taken seriously.
SOCAL media has in recent weeks been bombarded with outrage following the Penny Sparrow racism scandal. However, in the last few days attention has been drawn to victims of rape and sexual assault.
This after a Twitter user @JustKuthi shared a harrowing story about the rape and subsequent death of her alleged friend, Kamogelo ‘Kamo’ Peterson. It went viral, sparking the hashtag #RIPKamo.
The story, however, turned out to be just that – a fabricated story. Twitter was outraged. The world was outraged.
Local newspapers had caught wind of the series of 70 tweets recounting Kamo’s ordeal and ran with the story. The truth was only exposed after the validity of the tweets were questioned on the social platform, prompting media to investigate the allegations.
Media eventually tracked down the author of the tweets, an 18-year-old South African woman.
In an interview with the media, she said, “It was just a story I read on the internet and it made me feel like I didn’t want to live in South Africa anymore, so I made up my own story to show people how bad it is to live in South Africa. I apologise for misleading everyone.”
Many Twitter users have since criticised her actions, saying her fabricated story has reinforced the society’s notion of victim blaming and doubting rape survivors.
This is iterated by a similar story on Instagram, where a 27-year-old activist, Amber Amour, shared her alleged rape. She claimed that she was raped, nearly a month ago, by a man she had met at a hostel. According to Amour the man had invited her to shower with him, and she accepted saying she was ill and the water at her hostel was cold.
Amour live-blogged the incident posting a selfie she claimed was taken right after the ordeal, with a graphic explanation of the incident in the photo caption. She has since accused the site of removing her caption.
The photo showing Amour (@ambertheactivist) with tears streaming down her face has gone viral.
Immediate reaction form the public questioned the vailidty of the story and some suggested that the incident was Amour’s fault.
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