Latest victim of cyberbullying falls in the hands of Team Mafisi
You may have already come across a job appeal poster on a WhatsApp group that shows a young woman claiming to be a form four leaver in search of a house help vacancy.
The poster has gone viral since Sunday and the woman pictured is a YouTube vlogger Wabosha Maxine while the number written in the appeal belongs to a man, one Joel ‘Gida’ Wajuu.
When Nairobi News reached out to Joel to find out what the poster was all about, it turned out that the father of one is a victim of cyberbullying.
“I just woke up on Sunday to hundreds of weird messages from men hitting on me, I was unaware that my number had been written in some viral poster until a friend of mine forwarded it to me. It has been the longest 24 hours for me trying to explain to my family, friends and colleagues that I had nothing to do with that poster,” Joel told Nairobi News.
NOT FUNNY
He has tried to get to the source of the poster but every user who shared claims it was forwarded to them and the chain has been endless.
“I am planning to report the matter to the police to see if they will get to the bottom of this because honestly this is cyberbullying. It looks like the person who started it knows me very well as they used my nickname Gida. But whoever it is they should know that this is not funny as I have a job and a young family to protect,” he said.
Cheeky Kenyans have been in the habit of using their friend’s contact in messages they know will go viral.
FAKE ALERT
During the January Riverside attack, a user shared the contact of an employee of one of the affected companies claiming it was a police officer at the scene who was rescuing those trapped in the office complex.
The message at the time read, “If you know anyone stuck there… please let them text Anthony Kaleve no. ***, he is the incidence Commander at the scene and they can maybe text exactly where they are to be rescued.”
Police had to clarify that the Kaleve message was fake and instead they gave out the number of the head of flying squad Musa Yego and Nairobi police boss Philip Ndolo.
Kaleve had to switch off his phone for weeks and when Nairobi News tried to reach him three months after the incident he only said, “Please allow me not to comment on what happened and just let by gones be by gones.”