WHEN raunchy dancer Beverly Sibanda announced that she was carrying musician Andy Muridzo’s child, she did not anticipate the insults that were later hurled at her like poisonous arrows by the “netizens”.
BY PROBLEM MASAU
“I was taken aback by people who had the temerity to come to my inbox and hurl a lot of insults. For a moment, I thought it was a good idea to be out of social media. Then I thought again that this was the platform I use to market myself and interact with my fans,” she said.
Muridzo, on the other hand, received a fair share of memes and trolls.
“It came as a shock to me. People on social media started to judge me and I nearly lost it. Jokes about me started to circulate on Whatsapp and at one time, it was so frightening to be on social media,” the Delilah hitmaker said. These two are not the only ones who have had to deal with cyber-bullying.
Fungisai Zvakavapano-Mashavave (pictured) admitted that she once contemplated quitting music due to cyber-bullying. This followed photoshopped pictures about her appearance at the Zimdancehall awards which went viral on social media.
“My personal pictures were photoshopped in a degrading manner. I was being attacked for being a simple girl. This cyber-bullying was my worst experience, but I left everything in God’s hands. I even went for days without appropriate sleep or food,” she said.
Contemporary musician Jah Prayzah was forced to issue a statement denying a fake story which was circulating on social media, claiming that he could not resist the “sex juju” of his former dancer Pamela Zulu, popularly known as Gonyeti.
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In a bid to fight cyber-bullying, model Tafadzwa Mushunje launched an anti-cyber-bullying trust to help online victims.
Mushunje, who endured massive vitriol and abuse on the Internet owing to false allegations, believes the Zimbabwe Anti-Cyber Bullying Trust will help in the reduction of cyber-crimes in the country.
The former Miss Curvy finalist said her unpleasant experience pushed her to come up with such an initiative.
Mushunje was abused online after her boyfriend’s ex-wife accused the model of infecting her child with HIV. The model was later cleared by the courts.
“My story inspired me. To a greater extent, the growth of these social networking sites has led to a growth of what is called cyber-crimes, with more people suffering online within their homes,” she said. “So, because I have experienced it and I know how traumatic it can be to an individual, I saw the need to curb cyber bullying.”
She said the trust will provide victims with emotional support as well as counselling services to help them deal with their situations.
Harare lawyer Elfas Toungana said a lot of people were struggling with cyber-bullying because Zimbabwe’s current anti-bullying statutes were not comprehensive enough.
“The Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act provides for computer-related crime, but the code is too narrow, thin and grossly inadequate to deal with the dynamic changes in cybercrime,” he said.
“Section 162 to 168 of Chapter 8 of the Criminal Code tries to deal with unauthorised access and use of computer-related manipulation, but fails to deal with issues of bringing tormentors to book or bring a prosecution for libel.”
The government has crafted the Computer Crime and Cyber Crime bill which if passed into law will see people being jailed for cyber bullying.
A Postal and Telecommunications Authority of Zimbabwe official, Tsitsi Mariwo, said the cyber security law sought to protect individuals, communities and the country’s critical infrastructure from cyber-attacks.
“We have a responsibility to play our part as a country in terms of fulfilling our national, regional and international commitments to put measures to address the illegal activities associated with use of cyberspace,” she said.
