Murder in 140 characters: How social media is a doubl-edged sword

It begins with 140 characters.

'A man molested a woman at my house, I repeat, - a man molested a woman at my house!!!

And, three days later, after a campaign of vitriolic tweets and retweets, there has been a vindictive vendetta with the aim of total character assassination of the poor fellow, who has no chance at all to defend himself from the virtual mob.

Welcome to the dark side of the world of Twitter, where anyone with a smart phone, ten (or even less) fingers, a heart full of malicious intent and not necessarily lots of brain matter in their medulla oblongata can cut you up to pieces on social media, in short order.

Popular blogger Cabu Gah puts it well: "Social media has huge advantages in terms of immediacy, connectivity and impact. But put things like Twitter in the wrong fingers, and it is like giving a machine-gun to a monkey. A lot of rumours can be started, and solid reputations destroyed."

Social media personality Robert Alai, a battle-hardened virtual warrior agrees.

"There are all sorts of funny people with malicious personal and professional agendas out there, ready to violate anybody's reputation. And if they can use (things like) Twitter as tools to do it, they will."

That is why there are Facebook pages like the recent one called Dead Beat Kenya that was discussed in even international mainstream media like The Guardian newspaper and the BBC. The thing is, while there may be many genuine cases of bad dads who abandon their offspring and eat chicken daily while their children eat like chicken (maize and beans daily), the damage to the innocent menfolk is terrible.

A man, let's call him Tom, is providing everything for his little daughter, Dora (named after his mother). Tom got tired of all the drama from his baby mama, Diana, dumped her in February, kwanza on Valentine's Day eve, and seven months later in September got married to Tina in a lavish wedding that was even shown on Samantha Bridal on TV.

Because of this Diana decides to play dirty, gets an old picture of him in a 2012 Kazi na Uhuru T-shirt and shorts and slippers (a picture she took of Tom as he lay with a hangover on the sofa one Sunday morning) and posts it on Dead Beat Kenya, complete with a hateful rant.

People laugh, and 'like' and 'comment' and generally enjoy the spectacle of filthy linen being laundered publicly. Yet Tom has family and colleagues. Or he loses a lucrative client, thanks to the public 'wash wash' of the hogwash, and can no longer take Dora next year to a good primary school, or take her for their annual holiday in December to Mombasa, or even pay good child maintenance to Diana for their daughter.

When Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Noah Glass launched the Twitter site in the summer of 2006, they surely did not intend it to be a dossier where people living in glass houses, you have to love the pun, could get together and throw stones.

"The SMS of the Internet," Jack said, "and the title Twitter comes from the word twitter, a 'short burst of inconsequential information' or 'chirps from birds.' Perfect!"

But for anyone who has even been defamed, or their reputations shredded on this platform(s), such as the suicide cluster of nine super cyber-bullied high school students of blue collar Anoka in the USA in the autumn of 2009, or KISS 100 personality Kalekye Mumo torn into because of her weight, Twitter isn't all that chirpy.

For that 'short burst' can be slanderous allegations that shred reputations with far-reaching consequences. And those text chirps re-tweets from the twits, evil trolls and bird-brained individuals who stroll the less sunny undersides of social media, looking to go viral like the newly liberated Ebola virus.

A few years ago, when young Madeleine McCann disappeared while the family was on holiday in Lisbon, incompetent Portuguese police put out on social media (to deflect international media attention from their investigative inadequacies) that her parents were 'hindering the authorities.'

The story caught social media fire, with the kangaroo courts and usual haters crawling out of the virtual woodwork like bugs to bug and pester the traumatised McCann family with hate messages.

Last Friday, the McCann family won fifty five thousand Sterling pounds (Sh7.5 million) against The Sunday Times for picking up the Twitter hate tale – and running with it.

On Sunday, one of the most sadistic social media tormentors of the McCann family, 63 year old bitter and childless Brenda Leyland, (who had said it was 'her right' to harass the McCanns), was found dead in a hotel room in Leicester.

While donating their libel damages to a Missing Children charity this week, the McCanns said 'more Internet trolls should be charged and prosecuted.' Certainly, for running over hard-earned reputations like a Leyland lorry, more of these trolls should do last visits to Leicestershire, - and kill those stories.

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