A story published today (March 17, 2010) in Afrikaans newspaper Beeld and republished on News24 (in English) purposely misrepresents the supposed Facebook page of Julius Malema.
The story is headlined ‘Malema fan counts dead ‘boere” and reporter Daniëlla du Plooy writes that “One of Julius Malema’s supporters is placing ‘updates’ of farm murders on the ANC Youth League leader’s Facebook page.” The reporter then extensively quotes a ‘Malema fans’ posts onto the site seemingly supporting farm murders.
Eight paragraps down you get this little disclaimer “Malema is not necessarily the creator or even involved with the page.” You don’t say Daniëlla.
Even a quick glance at the site in questions clearly shows this is not a Facebook page run by Julius Malema, the ANCYL or even a Malema supporter. The picture page is filled with images ridiculing Malema and the wall posts shows all kinds of racist invective from all sides of the numerous devides.
One ‘Malema fan’ writes “You run around like monkey’s singing death songs about killing whites and so forth. I’m a young white with a young boy, i will make sure to teach him what kind of race you truly are. I will be as racist and do anything in my power to fight u fuckers back. You can take the K@ffir out of the bush, but u cant take the bush out of the K@ffir.”
Another writes “lets face the facts. Julius malema is a idiot that knows nothing about politics. he just there to spend the tax payers money like the coverment. let me be very clear.. he is a big mouth that like 2 talk shit with back up men standing behind him. he don.t have the balls to come tell a white guy in his face what he think…”
Like Daniëlla not everybody seems to realise that Julius isn’t reading their comments on ‘his’ page. “How do you Malema feel about the fact that white people are no more settlers than all black people in South Africa? This means that all black and white people are settlers in South Africa,” writes another ‘Malema fan.’
Does anybody at Media24 still check copy? Did and News24 editors take a look at the purported ‘Malema fan site?’ The answer seems to be no.
The good news is you can still become a ‘Media24 fan‘ on Facebook.
The Media24 report was accurate. After seeing the article first thing this morning, I clicked through to the Facebook page and saw what they were talking about. It seems since the story broke content has been deleted.
The comments from those opposing Malema, while occurring early in the life of the group, seems to have really started in earnest today after the link to the story was posted on Twitter, Facebook and other social media. The resulting speed with which news spreads using social media could more than likely explain for the heightened interest in the group since this morning.
It’s easy to add and remove content at will on these networks. That’s where the danger lies. What was true this morning might not be true tomorrow.
The commentary from the ‘Malema fan’ quoted in the story is still up on the Facebook page. I’m not disputing the quotes in question. The point I’m making is that the page has no formal affiliation with Malema as the headline indicates. Based on the photo gallery (go have a look) I would go so far as to say that the page was created by somebody who enjoys poking fun at Malema. That hardly constitutes a Malema fan club.
The story in question chose to give no context.
Update from News24: Malema postings ‘nonsense’
Indeed.
http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/2d0d96e68d98471e974459ac509fc193/17-03-2010-11-13/Malema_postings_nonsense
I did not write the headline and did NOT imply in the story that Malema has anything to do with the page. On the contrary.
The story states the following sentence:
“Malema is not necessarily the creator or even involved with the page…”
(Its obvious, as you also state, but a lot of people are not Facebook-savvy)
Secondly, the story is not simply about one person making random comments. In that case ALL those comments and hate speech would have to be included.
It is linked specifically to the warning by the FF+ that Malema’s song “Shoot the boers, they are rapists” could incite farm murders, and AfriForum using these posts as part of the hatespeech-claim about those very sayings.
It does not MEAN to imply even that Malema has anything to do with the page, as we know he probably doesnt (And today the ANCYL confirmed it).
It simply states that only a few days after he sang that song, people go about posting info on “boere” that have, indeed, been killed.
So Julius Malema is shite and we have shite journalism. This is of course about who is the biggest victim here, a discourse that works to the advantage of both sides who actually have more in common then they think: when not complaining about who is more racist, both go back to their suburban houses, braais and DStv.
Folks… it’s these idiot newspapers and journalists that have made Malema what he is today… it all started out so innocently… Malema the load mouth… now the ANC have a serious problem… Malema is more powerful than them… why should he shut up? If they fire him, he will form a new party… for the uneducated millions… better known as the ANC vote!
@Mr B – you are SO right! Malema is the brainchild/Frankenstein of the media who created the monster. As delicious as JM is to write about (he is the villain we all love to ate) I am doing my best to reverse this downward spiral into who-knows-what-will-happen by choosing NOT to focus on him. I’ve even proposed something more radical: that each and every one of us writes a letter to Malema in a gesture of hope, outlining our dreams for South Africa’s future – and making NO reference to anything negative wrt JM himself. http://myza.co.za/ukukulisa/2010/04/malema-a-love-letter.html