This Time, The Twitter Mob Came for Me!
Three weeks ago, I moderated a session on the shrinking online civic space in Somalia with prominent panelists in Mogadishu. The forum was the first of its kind to be held in Mogadishu where key issues including online harassment, smear campaigns, trolling, cyberstalking and impersonation as well as online deformation were discussed. The Panelists included well-known local journalist Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimu who formerly worked with BBC and Reuters, Zahra Qorane a photographer based in Mogadishu and Badra Yousuf, researcher and curator of Global Shaper’s Mogadishu chapter. These panelists shared different stories about online attacks on their social platforms, for instance, Mohamed’s twitter account was suspended in 2018 after it was allegedly reported by trollers, he had more than 15 thousand followers. Zahra’s Facebook account was hacked twice in 2015 in a period of less than five months and on the other hand Badra has been constantly attacked personally and professionally