In South Africa we have a pernicious politician running the ANC Youth League called Julius Malema. Through a combination of abusive rhetoric, populist and arrogant behaviour and blatant bullying he has succeeded in extending his influence far beyond his value.
Aside from threatening the President, he has insulted women, shown involvement in shady business deals and – in a recent high point – threatened to shut down Twitter because anonymous “Julius Malema” profiles appeared on the medium, used to ridicule him. As most bullies would do, he has threatened that the perpetrators will be found and prosecuted. Given that he runs the Youth League he has demonstrated an astonishing level of ignorance about both Twitter and social networking in general.
The South African Twitterati have responded by declaring today to be Julius Malema day, and mocking him en masse by posting comments on Twitter purporting to come from this hero.
http://www.news24.com/SciTech/News/Julius-Malema-Day-on-Twitter-20101112
All politicians expose themselves to criticism and should accept that they will recieve it. And walking into a crowded roomfull of friends and threatening to make them shut up (which is analogous to his Twitter behaviour) only opens one up to ridicule.
But, naive as it may sound, I expected more from this Twitter community. Malema is a schoolyard bully. As irritating as that may be – it is what it is, and responding in the same way lowers the discourse, alienates him even further, and provides him with legitimate claims about cyber abuse against his person. It further keeps him in the public eye and plays to his constituency.
For each community that participates, the Twitter dialogue represents a collective conscience. We should have done better.
