#Ramaphosa - The political "Twitterverse"
It has been an
extremely busy week for politicians and their detractors on social media. The “Twitterverse” has been trending
#Ramaphosa for the last few days and this week will see the Sygnia CEO take on
Mzwanele Manyi in court over tweets which she says defames her.
LISTEN: Social media law expert Verlie Oosthuizen weighs in on the #Ramaphosa trend:
Late on Saturday evening, the ANC's Deputy President attempted to stop the Sunday Independent from publishing a story which alleged that he had romantic relationships with eight women whom he had paid money to.
On Friday, the Whatsapp messages that had been sent to Ramaphosa regarding the content of the article were leaked and spread on social media. The judge refused to grant the order saying that Ramaphosa had not done enough to engage with the newspaper regarding the article.
The newspaper’s advocate had also argued that Ramaphosa’s privacy had already been breached when the Whatsapp thread had been shown on Twitter and so the interdict would not protect his privacy. The newspaper argued that he should sue for defamation if he wanted a remedy against the newspaper.
This week in Johannesburg, powerful businesswoman Magda Wierzycka will approach the court requesting that Mzwanele Manyi stop defaming her on Twitter, as he did in August 2017.
He has called her a racist, an economic terrorist, and implied an association with the assassination of Chris Hani on the basis that they are both of Polish decent. It will be interesting to see whether the court agrees that Manyi must be stopped immediately or whether they will say she must sue for defamation. We will be watching this space closely as it will have repercussions regarding commentary on political issues on social media.
VERLIE OOSTHUIZEN
Shepstone & Wylie Social Media Law Department