On Sunday evening, as South Africans took to Twitter to discuss their favourite Idols contestants, even the official Twitter account for the Office of the Presidency chimed in, saying: “OH NO!! I'm missing out on @IdolsSA. I'm far away in another timezone. #sadness.”
While the tweet was clearly an error on the part of the account administrator, who forgot to switch to his/her personal Twitter account before tweeting, it didn't stop the Twitosphere from poking fun at the Presidency's apparent priorities.
The misplaced tweet was followed by this message: “The last tweet was not an official tweet from the Presidency or the President, but rather an administrative error.” This then led to “administrative error” becoming its own hashtag and trending topic. Some of the reactions to the Presidency's tweet included the following:
“Next thing @PresidencyZA will be tweeting about how he missed Khethiwe and #Generations.”
“It's obvious an assistant to @PresidencyZA has the password on their smartphone and has dual accounts. LOL! I wonder if JZ was informed.”
[EMBERDDED]“The Idols SA tweet by the @PresidencyZA is a clear demonstration why communication has to be in the hands of professionals.”
“Good news, the President and the person who tweet for him are both idiots.”
“@PresidencyZA Oh, give over. Give us a break. Education, health, failed provinces. Administrative chaos comes as no surprise.”
“Error? How? What was the tweet supposed to say? Damn corrective text! I also hate it when that happens.”
“Someone at the Presidency is in big trouble tonight.”
“After yesterday's cock up by the PresidencyZA, we can now speculate that his next wife will be a pop star, chisa Gedleyihlekisa.”
Personal interests
While the PresidencyZA account is run by the office of the presidency, Zuma took his first tentative steps into the realm of social media about a year ago, with the creation of the SAPresident account. His tweets were initially few and far between, with most appearing to be copy-pasted from speeches, and not from Zuma himself.
This, however, changed when the president caused a storm of controversy when he used his official account to promote the show“It's For Life” on Mzansi Magic. The show featured his daughters Gugulethu and Nokuthula Zuma.
The Twiterati immediately condemned the tweet - giving the president a proverbial smack on the hand for using the platform to advertise personal interests.
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