Stellenbosch University (SU) recently reported an account on TikTok, and has laid criminal charges, after the account unlawfully used the university’s name and logo while publishing racially offensive content.
This is according to an official statement by Prof Hester Klopper, deputy vice-chancellor of SU, on 12 April. The account came to the attention of SU on 11 April, said Klopper.
“Not only are the particular posts repulsively racist, but it is also utterly demeaning and disrespectful towards our students, staff and other stakeholders,” said Klopper in the statement. SU has laid criminal charges in relation to the matter, she confirmed.
TikTok is a video-sharing application that allows users to scroll through short video clips. PHOTO: Alistair Seymour
The TikTok account is believed to have used the handle @stellenbosch.university, and allegedly posted videos featuring different areas of SU coupled with racist written statements. SU has no affiliation with the account, according to Martin Viljoen, spokesperson of SU.
“SU does not have an institutional account on this platform [TikTok],” said Viljoen in written correspondence with MatieMedia.
According to an announcement from TikTok on 12 April, the videos violated their community guidelines and the account has been deleted.
“It was unusual for us to get that much instruction [to address the issue] from students, especially about something like a social media post,” said Viwe Kobokana, transformation officer for the SU Student Representative Council (SRC).
Students were described as being “very bothered and very uncomfortable” with the videos, particularly as they featured specific students at SU, according to Kobokana.
The racist TikTok account contained a link to a Discord chat room, which contained further instances of hate speech. PHOTO: Alistair Seymour
“All students [were impacted]. I don’t think it was necessarily black students or people of colour, I think it was a lot of different kinds of people,” added Kobokana.
Some of the videos gained well over 200 000 views and were allegedly shared across other online platforms, such as Discord, an online chat room service, according to observations by MatieMedia. A Discord chat room that was linked to the racist TikTok account contained approximately 100 registered users and further instances of hate speech, observed MatieMedia. This chat room is also no longer active.
“I think that’s more our concern now: If we are sharing spaces with people who are perpetuating such ideas or if we are sharing spaces with people who are violently racist,” said Kobokana.
\Viwe Kobokana, transformation officer for the SU Student Representative Council (SRC), talks about the future fears and concerns of the SU student body.