EXTRACT
This week, successful businessman Romeo Kumalo and his former Miss South Africa wife Basetsana were forced to lay criminal charges, and apply for a protection order, against a woman who started a rumour that they appeared in a gay sex video.
Jackie Phamotse, author of Bare: The Blesser’s Game and responsible for the slanderous tweets was, the Kumalo’s have been reported as saying, using the hate tweets to drum up interest in her book.
She claims her Tweets did not name, and therefore could not shame, the Kumalos. Still, that didn’t stop the social media audience from identifying Bassie and Romeo and commenting as though they had been named.
That’s how it begins; the ruination of a reputation. And for what? To sell a few more copies of a book? To trend on social media for a few hours? To make yourself more visible by being as controversial as possible?