SOCIAL MEDIA PANIC BUTTON

By Tafadzwa Sharaunga

The March 16 referendum saw an increase in social media activism with a vast number of people tweeting and posting their pink fingers as evidence of their participation. Four days after there was a report in a local newspaper claiming that our government had brought in a specialist to monitor this trend! I visited Harare media center where a lot of freelance journalists access their internet and blog from we could say it is a hub for brilliant media minds.

Andrew Moyo and Tawanda Marwizi at the Media Center

 it has media practitioners with many interest from sport, entertainment, politics, gender issues and tourism. I interviewed couple of writer on how they received the news of government attempting to monitor their operations apparently some journalist present had their email accounts hacked by suspected a government operative disguised as a freelancer, they claim to have never discovered who exactly it was. The general mood at the media center was calm and one person who refused to be named for fear of victimization because of his stance on political issues claimed it would difficult for government to clamp down on social media activism for example they said had it been possible for them to hack Face-book the popular Mugrade7 account would have seized to exist by now! The majority of social media activists use ghost accounts to prevent information being tracked down to them directly!

Tawanda Marwizi an entertainment writer also said it is possible for them to monitor individual accounts and try to locate the origins of unruly elements in Zimbabwe’s blogosphere. He however stated that in the case of the referendum the activity was so overwhelming that government can only use it as barometer for public mood or an opinion census a crackdown would impossible

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Upenyu Makoni Matenga an expert blogger spoke about how it is highly unlikely our government could read the contents peoples email account as they have no access to web servers in the United States of America and judging from relations between the two it is safe to say will not have access for a long time to come. She however reminded people that if your account is hosted in Zimbabwe say for example any account that finishes with zw there is a possibility it can be hacked and monitored closely even though it will be too tasking for the government.