{"id":574942,"date":"2022-04-09T07:00:04","date_gmt":"2022-04-09T05:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=574942"},"modified":"2022-04-08T15:18:07","modified_gmt":"2022-04-08T13:18:07","slug":"south-africans-can-get-into-trouble-for-these-tweets-even-with-an-edit-button","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/internet\/574942\/south-africans-can-get-into-trouble-for-these-tweets-even-with-an-edit-button\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africans can get into trouble for these tweets &#8211; even with an edit button"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The recent suggestion to introduce an edit button on Twitter received enormous support from its users in a poll posted by South African-born businessman Elon Musk.<\/p>\n<p>Musk\u2019s poll \u2013 a response to a Twitter April Fool\u2019s post \u2013 had over 4 million votes by the time it closed on Tuesday (5 April), with a split of 74% for \u201cyes\u201d and 26% for \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The option to edit posts after publishing them has been a longstanding debate on Twitter and would allow users to fix errors on published tweets or correct misstatements on any viral posts.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;While it may be welcomed, even with an edit button, the legal consequences of publishing on social media platforms remain,&#8221; says Chanique Rautenbach, senior associate at Barnard Incorporated Attorneys.<\/p>\n<p>Irrespective of whether a post can be edited retrospectively, whatever statement you have posted is considered to be \u2018published\u2019, she said.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Do you want an edit button?<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1511143607385874434?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 5, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Publishing defamatory, confidential or misleading statements on social media could either land you in court facing a delictual lawsuit where you can face paying hefty damages, or you could even face a criminal lawsuit and, if convicted, earn yourself a criminal record. Injuring the dignity of another is a criminal offence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Social media platforms have policies to which users must conform when publishing a post. Twitter\u2019s policy specifically states that one may not incite or engage in the targeted abuse or harassment of others. This means that Twitter can also institute sanctions against you.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, it is important that users should remain cautious when publishing on Twitter, even if an option to edit retrospectively is added as functionality in future, said Rautenbach.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/574824\/south-africas-richest-man-targeted-in-anti-colonialism-protest\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">South Africa\u2019s richest man targeted in anti-colonialism protest<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The recent suggestion to introduce an edit button on Twitter received enormous support from its users in a poll posted by South African-born businessman Elon Musk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":574952,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9882],"tags":[16782,26],"class_list":["post-574942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-barnard-incorporated-attorneys","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574942"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574942\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575900,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574942\/revisions\/575900"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}