News24 editor in chief, Adriaan Basson, has announced the he will cease tweeting.
On the news site, he said that while his account would not be closed down, he could ‘no longer justify spending time and energy on a platform that has essentially become the playground of haters, disinformation merchants and trolls.’
He related how his initial interactions on Twitter in 2010 had been positive, but that this had changed over the past three years, with a great deal of content being ‘hateful, ignorant and divisive’, and often originating from fake accounts.
‘It’s no longer good or healthy or fun for me to tweet,’ he said.
He noted that as a senior journalist he retained a duty to interact with the public, and that News24 would be introducing a new online comments function which would use artificial intelligence to scan inputs for inappropriate material, which would then be moderated by people.
The contribution to public debate (or the damage to it) made possible by Twitter has been the subject of much controversy. Journalist Ferial Haffajee has written of the threats she receives via the platform. Democratic Alliance Federal Council Chairperson Helen Zille, whose own remarks on Twitter have caused considerable discussion, has expressed similar sentiments to those of Basson. Although she briefly withdrew from the platform, she has now returned.
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