[imagesource:iol]

Welcome to episode 40 923 in our ‘thinking before you post on social media’ series.

Over the weekend a goat-related post on a Woodstock Facebook group quickly spiralled into a major talking point on social media, and it’s not hard to see why.

The trouble started with a post by Megan Furniss on Saturday afternoon, which you can see below:

We searched ‘goat’ to find the posts, hence the highlighting – do excuse us.

Mention alleged animal abuse and people on social media usually descend into a frenzy, and this time was no different.

We’re not going to screenshot the entire thread, but one Twitter user (@bilalr) highlighted these:

The goat did not commit a crime, and now someone is having sex with it? Sounds like a pretty crummy deal.

How about injecting some sense into the situation? Let’s introduce Siraj Waggie and at the same time applaud his remarkable restraint shown during his post on Saturday evening:

Yup – it was a kid’s birthday party and the goat was part of a bloody petting zoo.

You can read another firsthand account from said birthday party on THIS Twitter thread by Aisha Baker, but here’s some of that:

Most of the people in attendance were Muslim parents wearing scarves etc – it was quite a large group you know how big our events can get

A older white lady came walking in the park sort of suspicious but we thought she may just be curious about the party

Only to find out she had called the cops and the spca claiming we were performing “ritualistic slaughtering” in the local park

Went on Facebook saw she started a thread about the party I will post in a second it’s such a disgraceful case of racial profiling I can’t.

She ran away – it was a kids party she could have just come over and asked us. Apparently a friend of hers didn’t blame her for running.

So far we have light of most of this situation, but we all know what’s going on here. People with head scarves who look different – wow, must be something sinister happening.

I’m too terrified to wander over and ask for any details, though, so I’ll rush to Facebook and inflame the situation. Then all the rest of the cronies on that Facebook group will wade in with their prejudice on display for all to see.

During all of that time, of course, no one has bothered to ask the gathered group what’s going on.

After realising the foolishness of her ways, Megan took to Facebook to apologise. This from Sunday at around 9:30AM:

And round two at 9:30AM this morning:

Megan does seem sorry, and we’re not here to hang people out to dry, but apologies like these are all too common.

Raise your game, people of Cape Town.

And so ends episode 40 923 in our ‘thinking before you post on social media’ series. Sadly the next episode won’t be far away.