Social media can change our lives.

The last two weeks has been an eye opening experience to say the least. A South African hero and international role model for millions was arrested for the pre-meditated murder of his girlfriend, in his house, while she was locked in the toilet. His defence is that he thought she was an intruder. It was dark and he slept with a gun on his bedside table, he woke up on the left hand side of the bed (he usually sleeps on the right but he had injured his shoulder) to move a fan from his veranda, which was on the left if you were lying in the bed.

We all have pictured the room, the bed, the slippers. The staircase. We have all lived the scenario, wearing different caps. We are all “investigators.” We all feel so much a part of it. This murder has felt real.

Social media has made it so.

The fact that Oscar Pristorius is a celebrity means that the entire process has been documented in ways that two years ago was unimaginable. It has been shared, dissected and digested by us on a platform we use hourly, a platform we update more times in a day then we care to imagine. A platform on which we get to choose what we want to “hear” and when.

I chose to follow Barry Bateman’s live updates of the bail hearing, along with 130 000 other people, give or take a few 10 thousand. Barry Bateman’s following has almost doubled daily. He, and others have made it more accessible, they have provided me an opportunity to become involved.

Yes the traditional news platforms have covered the story, but this time the source is Twitter. “Live” TV news broadcasts have become Google hangouts. News24 have been re-tweeting Bateman’s tweets. The fact is, it doesn’t take a multi billion Rand company to give us the news as it happens, it takes one person with a smart phone.

Anene Booysen.

Now there is a name that evokes emotion, and rightfully so. Prior to the breaking of the Pistorius case, Booysen’s tragic fate dominated the national conversation. And social media acted as a spectator channel, bringing us closer to the gravity of the situation. We saw emotional posts on Facebook, read more detail about her brutal rape and murder through Twitter updates. I even joined a group on Whatsapp to mobilize the “Hoot for Anene” campaign. It spoke to us directly through the same platforms we use to communicate with our friends and family. It spoke to me on my personal channel.

Last week I have replied to a News24 tweet regarding 12 men who have been arrested for gang raping a woman in Carltonville.

I asked if any of us ever know the name of the woman that was gang raped. She also had family, and friends. She also faced abuse, perhaps a lifetime of it.

If we had to use social media for good, if we had to make these terrible, barbaric acts more known, more felt, more lived, we would realize just how often this evil happens. If we knew more about the victim, her circumstances, the road she was walking down before she was attacked, or in extreme circumstances what side of bed she fell asleep on the night before she died, then maybe social media may just be able to save lives and actually play a genuine role in making our society better.

Because when you know the details of a victim, they become a human. And we’re bad at caring for victims.

So, will anyone be Live Tweeting the bail hearing for Anene’s killers? They can and they should. In fact, some journalists are.

But are any of you following?