IN SHORT: A tweet attributed to a prominent member of the Democratic Alliance, South Africa's second-largest political party, was actually posted by a parody account. The parody account was mocking comments made by another DA member in 2021.
Following May 2024 general elections, South Africa has a coalition government, widely dubbed a "government of national unity" (GNU), meaning the county is governed by a group of political parties. The two largest are the African National Congress (ANC), the former ruling party, and the Democratic Alliance (DA), the former official opposition.
Shortly after the official announcement of the new cabinet, many South Africans shared a screenshot of what appeared to be an X post from DA member of parliament Natasha Mazzone.
The post reads: "All black people in the DA are just experiments. No matter how racist we are to them they still follow us pathetic."
Some social media users suggested that this was indicative of the views of both the DA and the ANC, as both parties are members of the GNU.
This is a real post on X, formerly Twitter, from 2021 but it was not posted by Mazzone.
'Parody' account, Mazzone is no longer on X
This tweet was originally posted by an account with the handle @natashamazzone2. The account uses a photo of Mazzone and the name "Natasha Mazzone", but it is not, in fact, Mazzone's.
The account @natashamazzone2 has "Parody Account" listed in its bio. Parody accounts are allowed on X, as long as they are clearly labelled as such.
As of April 2023, X's rules require that "Parody, Commentary, and Fan accounts must distinguish themselves in their account name and in their bio". This is important, as the platform announced the end of its system of verifying official accounts after it was bought by billionaire Elon Musk in 2022. Musk was responsible for its name change from Twitter to X.
Because @natashamazzone2 uses the account name "Natasha Mazzone", it is in violation of this rule.
The parody account has not posted in years. But this requirement - to state that an account is a parody in both the account name and bio - was official policy in July 2021 when the account last posted.
Mazzone used to have an X account with the handle @Natasha9Mazzone, but it no longer exists. Copies of the account as it existed can be found on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, a project that preserves copies of web pages over time. These reveal that the account was "verified", which at the time was an indication that the person running the account was who they said they were. (This is no longer how this feature works on X.)
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Frustratingly, the @Natasha9Mazzone handle seems to have been taken over by another Mazzone impersonator. The new owner of the account uses the account name "Matasha Nazzone" and appears to have joined X in February 2022, after Mazzone had deleted her account. This account does not indicate that it is a parody.
In November 2022, Mazzone posted on Facebook: "There are over six fake Twitter accounts impersonating me. Please be assured. I only ever had ONE Twitter account which was verified. I left Twitter a year and half ago, it was even reported on!"
Post mocking comments by another DA leader
Furthermore, the tweet by @natashamazzone2 satirised certain comments made in 2021 by a former DA leader about Mmusi Maimane, the only black person to lead the DA to date.
In an interview with News24 on 4 April of that year, former DA leader Tony Leon said that Maimane's term as leader "was an experiment that went wrong". In a public response, Maimane said: "For Leon and his ilk, comments like this demonstrate that black people can only be experiments."
The @NatashaMazzone2 tweet was written on 21 April, just a few weeks after News24 published this interview with Leon. It is clear that the Mazzone parody account was making reference to what was at the time a recent event.
