OTM 2 - The Accidental Outing of Rwanda's most Powerful Troll

I actually listened to half a dozen podcasts before I decided to write about this particular one.  What I found most intriguing about this article was the similarity between on-line and reality and sometimes how those lines get blurred or at the very least mimic eachother.

The article doesn't appear to be anything too newsworthy other than the fact of who the actors on the stage are, metaphorically speaking.

It's about how the Rwandan government is quite active on Social Media.  The President - Paul Kagame - has his own Twitter account etc..... The government also harasses and employs internet trolls.  While this may seem surprising in our culture the journalists who Tweet and/or have worked in Rwanda are not surprised because of the regular treatment of journalists in that country.  If a journalist writes something the Rwandan government doesn't like, they have killed and/or jailed them etc.....so for this government to employ trolls doesn't seem all that surprising considering the culture.

In listening to other OTM podcasts, there appears to be one prevailing theme, "DON'T FEED THE TROLLS," and while most agree, in every interesting podcast, the author always has that one troll that particularly stands out.  This story plays along as well.  There was a journalist who was tweeting, and a Rwandan government troll came along and harassed her, so a fellow journalist Steve Terrill basically stood up for his (girl) friend and told the troll there was no cause to act like that.  The troll of course came after him.  However, after doing some research and going as far back in the trolls history as he could Mr. Terrill discovered the troll was indeed a Rwandan government staffer.  So the troll and Mr. Terrill keep exchanging tweets until one fateful day the troll forgot to switch his account and he used the Rwandan Government tweet account to call Mr. Terrill out.  This of course was the smoking gun and Mr. Terrill knew for sure who the troll was.  But, what I find fascinating is the Rwandan government didn't apologize and fire their staff member, they stood behind their own and in turn made Mr. Terrill's life miserable for this accidental outing they claimed Mr. Terrill was responsible for.  This is where real-life mimics on-line, the government then blocked Mr. Terrill from ever entering the country again.  Just like on-line when you block someone from entering your personal internet space.  Mr. Terrill at this point regrets pursuing  the troll and the accidental outing which proved it was the government indeed who employs trolls, from his point of view it wasn't worth getting blocked from the country.

I believe this is another case of dirty politics, culture and technology clash.  The internet not only mimics reality but reality at times mimics the internet.  Power, corruption and politics live on.