Afrikaans musician in trouble over Facebook posts

A case against musician Sunette Bridges for racism and hate speech will be heard in the Equality Court in the Western Cape today.

Isaac Mangena, the Human Rights Commission's spokeman, said ït has been receiving complaints about the racist content of Bridges' Facebook pages for years.

"The SAHRC has asked that Ms Bridges apologise unconditionally across all the Facebook pages over which she has primary control and that she removes all harassment and hate speech from these pages," the commission's lawyer Brigit Rubinstein said. 

Commission spokesman Isaac Mangena said the court papers contained numerous examples of the "violent hate speech and racist" comments posted on her Facebook wall.

The SAHRC had approached Bridges, and she denied committing any offence.

Mangena said Bridges consistently allowed such commentary on her page, effectively condoning it and creating a platform for racist hate speech to flourish.

"The laws are in place for a reason and in a country whose history is centred on racism and oppression, with concerted efforts being made to move forward in this regard, people creating public forums have a responsibility to obey the law and stand up to hate speech and racism," he said.

We often don't think the stuff we post on our social media accounts can be harmful to our careers.

But very often the companies we work for and potentially want to work for actually check up on the content of our pages and I have heard of many a story where people have been fired for posting negative comments about the companies they work for - and subsequently getting dismissed from their work.

Do you post whatever you like on your social media accounts, or are you careful about what you say?

(Photo via: www.facebook.com/sunettebridgesnewspage)