Uh oh: SABC ‘distances’ itself from a Twitter blunder

Someone at the SABC News’ digital team is probably shaking in their boots, after unwittingly posting a tweet from the public broadcaster’s Twitter account.

By all indications, the person in question most likely forgot to log out from the account.

Here’s what happened: Former radio host Redi Tlhabi posted a tweet, responding to another tweet, which showed the flow of funds from the lucrative R150 million Digital Vibes contract and further implicating the Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize.

“In the middle of a flippen pandemic. Greedy, immoral thugs,” Tlhabi wrote.

“I honestly thought he was one of the good ones. ARE there any good ones…,” another Twitter user by the name of Nicola Vaughan posted, in response.

That’s when the unlucky SABC News staffer tweeted back, “A good politician!?! Do you know what oxymoron means?,” prompting a chain of reactions from fellow Twitter users, including one who asked the broadcaster’s editor Sophie Mokoena whether she was the one behind the social media blunder. The tweet has since been deleted.

I honestly thought he was one of the good ones. ARE there any good ones…

— Nicola Vaughan (@NicolaVaughan8) August 1, 2021

SABC investigating ‘erroneous’ tweet

SABC News has since distanced itself from the tweet and has also launched an investigation to unmask the person behind the post.

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  Twitter screen grab

This isn’t the first time that a media house was involved in a social media blunder. In February 2017, Johannesburg-based radio station Power FM was in a similar position, after a post surfaced on its Twitter account stating that the station had planned on firing some of its presenters.

“Tjoe bbz, they’re firing Masechaba and Lawrence and some other presenters,” the tweet, which was later deleted, read.

The station later tweeted that its account had been hacked. Whether it’s merely a coincidence or not, Masechaba Ndlovu and “some other presenters” were not announced in the station’s lineup, just months later.