Candice Bailey
15 December 2003
A racist internet user appears to have embarked on a smear campaign by posting hate speech and racist slurs on the website of Nelson Mandela's Aids fundraising campaign, 46664.
The user, who is only known by the alias "GodBlessAIDS", began his slurs with a note saying: "Hello I'm a racist white man and thank God for Aids!"
He went on to make racist remarks about blacks and Mandela.
The anonymous user, who fails to give his location and e-mail address in his profile, has posted 53 messages since registering on December 13.
Other users have expressed their revulsion for the user's vulgar rhetoric and have termed him as "sick" and "twisted".
And according to a technical assistant at Tiscali, the internet company that manages the website, there is nothing that can be done to stop the user.
The assistant, who did not want to be named, said that the message board - where users are encouraged to post topics to stimulate debate - is a public notice board.
"There is no way that you can catch this user and there is no way to stop him. If you kick him out of the forum he will just use another nickname to enter the site," he said.
The Tiscali assistant did, however, say that there should be a moderator monitoring the site.
"There should be someone who checks for racial slurs and to ensure that the message board does not go over its capacity," he said.
He said he believed the abusive messages could have come from somebody in America.
But in a search by the Cape Argus for an e-mail address or contact details on the website, none could be found.
Many of the registered users seem to agree with the technical assistant.
One, known only as Jaye, said they believed the abusive user was leaving the forum because he had found his hate speech was leading to nothing.
Other users have also complained about the administration of the site, and the hate speech and offensive language on it, pleading for a moderator to oversee the process.
Meanwhile Tiscali has denied previous allegations of any form of involvement of the satanic website spod.org with the 46664 page.
Recent allegations indicated that the satanic website was powering the message board.
Tiscali did not want to comment any further about the allegations and would not comment on the racial messages.
But John Samuel, chief executive officer of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said the racist remarks and problems with the message board had been brought to the foundation's notice late last week.
Samuel said that Tiscali had told them that they believed all the problems to be the work of a hacker.
He said he would be meeting with Tiscali today to see what measures could be taken.
Samuel said the problem experienced with the website required technical intervention.
"We believe that Tiscali can bring this situation under control," he said last night.
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