Helen Zille calls Twitter an ‘evil platform’, closes her account

February 17, 2020 Siyabonga Mtangana

One of South Africa’s highest-profile politicians is quitting Twitter, describing the social media site as an “evil platform” that has “degenerated into a platform for irrationality and mob-lynching”.

“This evil platform, that can find no effective way of filtering out fake accounts and dealing with hate speech (as constitutionally defined), offers no alternative. Go well if you mean well. I’m out of here,” the Democratic Alliance Federal Council chair and a former party leader said in a series of tweets.

The @helenzille account is followed by nearly 1.5 million people.

She is not quitting Twitter, though, and said she will open a new account called @ZilleTweets. However, the new account will be private, allowing Zille to vet who follows her. “That will be for people interested in rational debate only,” Zille said.

“Of course, I would only know if someone is interested in rational debate if I know them either personally, or through past Twitter interactions. This means I may reject many who are interested in rational debate, but who I do not know.”

The former Western Cape premier lambasted Twitter, saying that “instead of democratising debate, it has severely curtailed freedom of speech and discussion”.

‘Emboldens your enemies’

“It emboldens your enemies and silences your friends. It is a space where the best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity, as Yeats so aptly put it,” she tweeted.

“Twitter has degenerated into a platform for irrationality and mob-lynching. Everything that can be distorted and twisted for a hate-filled agenda, is used for the purpose of manufacturing outrage and inflicting maximum damage.

“For a long time I have sought to promote Twitter as a platform for rational and civil debate, but it clearly is not possible. It has degenerated into a space of distortion, de-contextualisation, demonisation, de-legitimation and double standards.”

Zille’s decision to close the @helenzille account follows what she called “the grotesque treatment of my granddaughter on Twitter”.