Moon landing on the dark side

The year 2019 began optimistically with a bang: on Thursday 03rd January a Chinese lunar probe spacecraft successfully landed on the far ‘dark’ side of the moon (the side not facing the earth). The probe, named Chang’e 4 by the Chinese National Space Administration, has inaugurated a new chapter in space and lunar exploration and reignited the ‘space race’. The Chinese probe will be used to study the geology of the surface, solar wind from the sun, and perform onboard experiments. Currently plant growth in weaker gravity is being tested onboard the probe.

This is the first time any spacecraft has landed to the dark side of the moon, although past probes that have orbited the moon have taken pictures of the dark side. The landing took place on a part of the moon called the South Pole-Aitken basin, which is the biggest known impact structure (crater) in the solar system. It is a particularly impressive feat technologically, given that most of the landing including the touchdown was done autonomously by the probe, and the dark side of the moon not facing earth directly makes it challenging for the probe to communicate back to earth. This communication challenge necessitated a relaying satellite named Queqiao to accompany the probe, and Queqiao is in a ‘halo orbit’ in space further away from the moon, enabling communication between Chang’e 4 and earth. The last lunar landing was by another Chinese probe, Chang’e 3 in 2013. Before that the most recent landing was a Soviet probe Luna 24 in 1976!

During the Cold War the space race between the United States of America and the Soviet Union was heated. The Soviet Union was the first country to send a dog and a person to space (1957 and 1961 respectively), land a spacecraft on the moon and obtain images of the far side of the moon (both 1959), have an astronaut do a ‘spacewalk’ (1965) and land a spacecraft on Mars (1971). It also successfully landed multiple lunar probes to the moon (Luna 2 in 1959, Luna 9 in 1966) and was the first to send a satellite to orbit the moon (Luna 10 in 1966). The USA was the first country to crash a spacecraft on the far side of the moon (1962), send manned missions to orbit the moon (Apollo 8 in 1968, Apollo 10 in 1969) make the first flybys of Venus and Mars (1974) and Jupiter and Saturn (1979), and also successfully sent multiple probes to the moon; but its greatest space achievement is that it remains the only country to date that has successfully landed human beings on the moon (Apollo 11 and 12 in 1969, Apollo 14 and 15 in 1971 and Apollo 16 and 17 in 1972 ).

Is it a coincidence that this great Chinese achievement has happened on the same year that the fiftieth anniversary of the first successful manned moon-landing mission will be celebrated? It is fitting that almost fifty years after Neil Armstrong’s great leap for humanity, another such leap has been made.

Surviving R Kelly

Just as the world was basking in the sun of great human scientific achievement thanks to the Chinese, a dark shadow was cast to remind us that the human race still has far to go to rid itself of evil. Surviving R Kelly is a three-part six-episode documentary on the controversial American musician Robert Sylvester Kelly’s history of sexual abuse of associates that aired exclusively on American TV channel Lifetime between 03rd and 05th January. The impact of the documentary was immediately evident: viewership increased with each episode, the last reaching a high of 2.29 million, the National Sexual Assault Hotline reported an increase in calls by twenty-seven percent during the airing of the documentary, and #SurvivingRKelly was one of the hottest trending topics on social media in America and other places that weekend and the week after. Usually, documentaries do not create much buzz like other scripted television series and movies, much less in this case given that the subject of R Kelly’s sexual abuse history is not news. So what is it about this documentary that made it tick and trend?

The coup of Surviving R Kelly can be considered two-fold. First, unlike other movements against sexual harassment and abuse like the internationally popular #MeToo in Hollywood that has already claimed scalps (Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, Kevin Spacey and counting) but which seem focused only on the transgressions of celebrities, the documentary focused on ordinary obscure women who were R Kelly’s victims and gave them a voice, and in addition featured multiple witness accounts and even some of the parents of the victims, which is rare in cases of sexual abuse. This is notwithstanding the fact that Rhythm and Blues musician Aaliyah Dana Haughton (1979-2001), one of the most famous of R Kelly’s victims and who was married to him for a few years including while she was underage, was featured for a few minutes.

Second, despite the fact that the abusive history of R Kelly has been public knowledge since the nineties when it was first reported, the documentary exposed the inner workings of the music industry and how multiple individuals and organizations all contribute to creating an enabling environment for sexual abuse to thrive in. This is particularly impressive, given that #MeToo has not ventured into the music industry, leaving Surviving R Kelly to pioneer and hopefully start a much needed and long awaited conversation on sexual abuse in the music industry.

How the documentary actually came into being is worth telling. In November 2001, Jim DeRogatis, a reporter and music critic who at the time was working with the Chicago Sun Times and had investigated sexual abuse allegations made against R Kelly in the nineties, received a videotape sent anonymously that allegedly showed R Kelly performing lewd acts on an underage girl. He broke the story soon after, which caused much controversy to the extent that R Kelly was eventually put on trial in 2008. But as with other trials R Kelly was acquitted, in this case because the jury could not agree on the identity of the victim on the tape. In 2017, DeRogatis broke another explosive story about R Kelly, this time that he had founded a sex cult that had taken and held his victims hostage for years. It did not spark as much controversy as the 2001 story, and quickly faded from public view. DeRogatis’ steadfastness in following the allegations made against R Kelly over the years have earned him a reputation and nicknames such as a ‘lonely crusader’ (Chicago Magazine) and ‘the reporter who never gave up (New York Times). It seemed that for seventeen years he had been wasting his time.

After the 2017 story broke, producers working at Lifetime saw an opportunity to revisit the sexual abuse history of R Kelly in a unique way not done before. They began to research, reading the reports and articles written about it, and discretely getting in touch with victims and their families. It was not easy to build trust with the victims. Initially three survivors and two sets of parents agreed to participate in the documentary. The producers approached multiple television networks including those like BET that have majority Black audiences, but only Lifetime agreed to pick it up without any hesitation. Lifetime executives immediately realized the challenge the subject matter posed: sexual abuse allegations made against R Kelly were not newsworthy anymore, so how would viewership be attracted to an old story? They decided to paint a timeline of the allegations going back almost thirty years to illuminate a consistent pattern that would be difficult to ignore and would provide a strong platform on which the victims would be able to tell their stories in their own words.

In May 2018 Lifetime ordered a ninety minute documentary and the production began, but when the number of victims willing to tell their stories on camera increased to over fifty, it became clear that it would have to be broken up into parts to form a docuseries. By the time filming ended in December, over six hours of footage had been accumulated for editing. Not all victims interviewed were included in the final work, as some were not comfortable with coming forward on camera. However there were multiple victims who had never come forward publicly before. The legal vetting of the victims who agreed to appear on camera was exhaustive and rigorous, as they anticipated litigation by R Kelly or others during the filming process. The producers sought the participation of DeRogatis since the final part of the documentary featured much of his investigative work and some of his sources. DeRogatis declined to participate due to creative differences and also since he is already preparing a separate documentary on R Kelly.

An unlikely occurrence created much buzz in the weeks before the documentary premiered. A private screening of the documentary in a theatre in New York on Tuesday 04th December to which some of the victims had been invited aborted after an anonymous call about a gun threat forced the theatre to be evacuated. The abortive screening trended on social media sparking curiosity in many who may not have heard of it before. The anonymous call was later traced to an associate of R Kelly in Chicago, and had the opposite effect from that intended. The premier of the documentary on Lifetime was viewed by 1.8 million people, breaking a two-year record for highest rated program of the network. Since airing Surviving R Kelly, Lifetime’s viewership has increased considerably and its ratings have surged.

The makers of the documentary revealed how difficult it was to get musicians and celebrities who had collaborated with R Kelly and record labels he had worked with in the past to step forward and participate. They unsuccessfully approached executives of Sony Music’s RCA Records and the likes of Shawn Corey Carter (Jay-Z), David Khari Webber Chappelle (Dave Chappelle), Erica Abi Wright (Erykah Badu), Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta (Lady Gaga) and Celine Marie Claudette Dion (Celine Dion). They were however able to convince a few like John Roger Stephens (John Legend), Chancelor Jonathan Bennett (Chance the Rapper) and Stephanie Edwards (Sparkle) to take part. Some of those celebrities who declined to feature in the documentary subsequently expressed remorse, like Lady Gaga, who regretted collaborating with R Kelly and even directed online streaming services to remove a song ‘Do What U Want’ which she did with him in 2013. Others like Chance the Rapper, Ciara Princess Harris (Ciara) and Celine Dion have followed suit, taking down their collaborations with R Kelly from the streaming music services and retailers.

In contrast, some other celebrities have stood by R Kelly in the wake of the allegations. RnB musician Erykah Badu has gone as far as publicly defending R Kelly against the allegations made in the documentary, even doing so at a performance in Chicago on the night of Saturday 19th January during which she was booed off the stage by an angry audience and slammed on social media thereafter. Rapper Shawntae Harris (Da Brat) in a TMZ interview on Sunday 20th January said she never witnessed R Kelly sexually abusing anyone, wondered where the parents of the young girls being abused were at the time the alleged abuse happened, and said she would not stop listening to his music despite the documentary’s revelations.

The aftermath of the documentary is a mixed bag. A backlash against the victims who appeared in it was swift, and a Facebook page called ‘Surviving Lies’ appeared which attempted to discredit their testimony and exposed their personal information, thereby violating Facebook’s Community Standards guidelines. Facebook quickly took down the page on Monday 07th January. The State Attorney’s office in Cook County, Illinois, has reported receiving multiple new allegations of abuse by him, which it is investigating. Similar cases in the states of New York and Georgia are being pursued. Surprisingly, online streaming of R Kelly’s music spiked two-fold according to Nielsen SoundScan, an information and sales tracking system of the music industry in USA and Canada. Radio airplay of his music has plunged however, with many stations publicly banning his music in solidarity with his abuse victims. In addition, Sony Music’s RCA Records which was R Kelly’s record label dropped him shortly after the documentary was aired.

R Kelly has been taken to court multiple times before by his victims, but no case has yet been successful, and it remains to be seen if the illumination this documentary gives his controversial history will make the difference in the many cases against him that will definitely follow.

Smart gloves that convert sign language to audio

2019 also began on a positive note thanks to innovation. On 4th January multiple articles appeared online about Roy Allela, a Kenyan who developed an innovation to assist those with hearing impairments: specially designed smart gloves that convert sign language to audio. These gloves, called SIGN-IO, have sensors embedded in each finger which are able to encode finger bends and movements made by a wearer doing sign language; the gloves connect via Bluetooth to a smartphone having an Android application which decodes the finger movements and matches them to the equivalent audio speech; the result is real time vocalization of the sign language.

Allela is a software engineer and currently works in Intel Corporation as a Program Manager. He was inspired to create SIGN-IO by his niece who is deaf. For a long time he observed how she always needed a sign language translator in order for her to communicate with people who can hear, since most people can hear and do not understand sign language. He was troubled by her dependence on translators and the hindrance it would pose to her progress later in life, especially when it comes to access to opportunities in education and employment. This personal connection to a problem faced by many people with hearing impairments drove him to think of a way to help her overcome and break this dependence.

When he first developed a prototype of SIGN-IO, he tested them with his niece. She wore the gloves and made sign language movements, and the speech equivalent was vocalized in real time by the app. Roy did not need to respond to her by sign language also because she is proficient in lip reading. He then did more tests, iteratively improving the app’s algorithm by taking into account the different speeds at which people speak using sign language and incorporating these variations into the application. He also added advanced features for the audio output like different languages, gender and pitch. Tests yielded impressive results higher than ninety percent accuracy.

In addition to the technical aspects, the aesthetic aspects were also a big part of design of SIGN-IO. Roy considered the stigma associated with hearing impairments especially among children and youth, and considered how to make a tool that assists them while at the same time looks attractive. Taking into the account the tastes of his niece and other kids, he designed and developed multiple designs of the gloves which appeal to children, including a ‘Spider Man’ design for boys and a ‘Princess’ design for girls. There are also ‘African print’ designs.

Last year, Allela was honoured for his efforts by being awarded the trailblazer hardware award by the American Society for Mechanical Engineers. Upon receiving the award he committed to use the prize money for research into improving the product particularly in the vocal prediction aspect. This year he is among sixteen Africans who have been shortlisted for the 2019 Royal Academy of Engineering Africa Prize.

It is estimated that over thirty million people suffer from hearing impairments globally. Allela’s vision is to supply two pairs of SIGN-IO gloves to all special-needs schools in Kenya and eventually have the gloves used all over the world. Technology and innovation targeting people who are disabled and suffer from impairments are not common today, so it is refreshing to see such a cool tool designed specifically to help them.

Dusit terrorist attack in Nairobi

Somalia-based terrorist group Al Shabaab struck Kenya again on Tuesday15th January, this time in the Riverside area of the capital Nairobi on an ordinary afternoon of January. At around 03:00 p.m. members of the group entered the 14 Riverside Drive Complex that is located along Riverside Drive not far from University of Nairobi Chiromo Campus. Soon after, bullets started flying. It would take until Wednesday morning for Kenya’s security forces to contain the situation and neutralize the terrorists. The building targeted was DusitD2 hotel, which is part of the Complex that has upscale offices and restaurants.

One of the attackers posing as a customer of Secret Garden restaurant blew himself up. As people began running out of the restaurant and being evacuated, four attackers entered the complex at the main entrance, opened fire and threw grenades at the security guards who fled. The attackers proceeded to open the vehicle barriers and let themselves in. They began to shoot at random those they encountered, as those in the building and offices either evacuated and fled or hid themselves.

The response of the Kenya Police was swift, and soon military and GSU were called in to contain the situation. Gunfire and explosions continued through the evening and even into the night. Eventually by 1000 hrs the next day, the government announced that it had neutralized the attackers. The Cabinet Secretary for Internal Security and the President both gave statements about the attack and the successful police operation to contain the situation, and passed condolences to the victims and their families and those affected. The official death toll was fourteen at the time of the statements, but this increased later to twenty-one.

The international media were quick to share the story about the attack, but the New York Times (NYT) came under fire when its initial story on the attack included pictures of dead civilians. Mainstream media and many Kenyans on social media rebuked this callous treatment of Kenyan victims of terrorist attacks, and rightly asked why NYT never shows victims of mass shootings in USA or terrorist attacks in Europe. Twitter suspended NYT’s photo account (@NYTphoto) over the furore. NYT was intransigent and the journalist who wrote the initial story, Kimiko de Freytas Tamura, even wrote a follow-up article that attempted to justify NYT actions. NYT stood its ground and defended Tamura, insisting that individual journalists do not decide which images get featured with their stories, and they take their responsibility seriously to help their readers see and understand the world. Tamura happens to also be the incoming NYT East Africa Bureau Chief, and many Kenyans demanded she resign while others asked the government to deport her. The Media Council of Kenya (MCK) was quick in writing to NYT to complain, demand the images of victims be pulled from the story, and also threatened to revoke the licenses of NYT journalists practicing in Kenya if it did not issue a public apology. MCK had given NYT until Monday 21st January to respond and comply with its demands. NYT’s response to MCK has not been publicized.

Kenyans showed support to those affected during and after the ordeal. Many donated blood to those who were evacuated and needed it. On social media, some of those who were caught up in Dusit were updating the public in real time as the attack went on, and were encouraged to hang in there. The government was quick to caution people against aiding the attackers to spread propaganda about the attack. Later, the Al Shabaab terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was in response to USA President Donald Trump recognizing Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel.

Investigations into the attack began while it was underway. The Police were able to identify collaborators by tracing the owners of the vehicle they had used to travel to Dusit. From this, they were then able to identify where they had lived. A wife of one of the attackers who was on the run was discovered and captured near the border. By Friday 18th January five people had been taken to court over the attack. The focus of the investigators has been multi-pronged: the financing of the attack, how the attackers moved money around, who they interacted with, how they acquired vehicles and passports, and so on. While it has been true that in past attacks the terrorists were Somalis, Dusit attack involved non-Somalis, which is a somewhat worrying trend for the security forces. Some of the Garissa attackers were non-Somalis. It is clear that Al Shabaab has started appealing beyond its traditional Somali demographic.

Al Shabaab has attacked Kenya multiple times, mostly in isolated grenade and IED attacks in the Northern part of Kenya, near the border with Somalia and in the Coast region. However its main attacks have been in Nairobi at Westgate Shopping Complex on Saturday 21st September 2013 (71 people killed), Garissa University on Thursday 02nd April 2015 (148 people killed). Before Westgate the most recent terrorist attacks were carried out by other groups like Al-Qaeda, such as the attack on Paradise Hotel in Mombasa on Friday 22nd November 2002 (13 killed) and the attack on the American Embassy offices on Friday 07th August 1998 (212 killed). Following the Dusit attack, OdipoDev, a data analysis firm, published an article about terrorist attacks in Kenya, and it showed surprising findings. Terrorism in Kenya is not a rare occurrence as many may think, but is quite frequent. Kenya has suffered more than 350 terrorist attacks from 1975 to date, 311 of which have happened since 2011! This means that once every two weeks or so there is a terrorist attack somewhere in Kenya, even if only those that occur in urban areas and have a large death toll usually get reported.

On Saturday 26th January at around 08:00 p.m. there was an explosion along Tom Mboya Street in the Central Business District that seriously injured two people. The investigations revealed that it was caused by an improvised explosive device (IED). The war on terror is evolving, from full frontal assaults and use of grenades to now IEDs. The security forces ought to take note and adapt accordingly. The response to Dusit was much faster and better coordinated than the response to Westgate and Garissa. The next improvement now is intelligence gathering.

Confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial

On Friday 18th January, hundreds of thousands of pro-life individuals gathered at Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. for the March For Life rally. This is a pro-life event held annually in D.C. on or around the anniversary of the landmark United States Supreme Court Roe vs Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide (January 22, 1973). The event has for many years been addressed by sitting US Presidents (the first being Ronald Reagan in 1987) either via a pre-recorded message or phone, but for the first time last year President Trump addressed it live via satellite. Being a pro-life event, it does not get wide media coverage from the most popular mainstream media outlets. However this year, it was thrust into the spotlight unexpectedly by events at the Lincoln Memorial immediately following the rally involving some of the participants of the March for Life.

The three people at the centre of what happened are an unlikely trio. Nick Sandmann is a White high school student in Covington Catholic High School in the Park Hills area of the northern part of Kentucky. He was part of a group of students from the school that had earlier in the day participated in the March For Life activities. After the rally, the students went to the Lincoln Memorial for some sightseeing. Nathan Phillips is a Native American elder of the Omaha Nation, a military veteran and a prominent activist for Indigenous Peoples’ causes. He was part of a group of Native Americans that participated in an Indigenous People March that was taking place at the Lincoln Memorial at the time Nick Sandmann and his Covington student group arrived for sightseeing. Kaya Taitano is a teaching assistant in D.C. and is originally from Guam. She had gone to the Lincoln Memorial to participate in the Indigenous Peoples’ March in support of her godchildren and also former elementary school students. How did their paths cross?

At some point on Friday evening Nick’s and Nathan’s groups came face to face. A short video of the encounter was recorded by Taitano. The video shows Nick and Nathan facing each other, Nick was wearing a MAGA cap (President Trump’s slogan ‘Make America Great Again’) and smiling and Nathan chanting and beating a drum, surrounded by youths who were jeering loudly, some of whom were also wearing MAGA caps. Taitano uploaded the short video to her Instagram account just after 07:30 p.m. that evening, after which she posted a longer version to her YouTube account. Both posts quickly drew thousands of views.

Just after 11:10 p.m. that same Friday evening, a Twitter account @2020fight reposted Taitano’s clip (short version) and captioned it in the tweet as follows: “This MAGA loser gleefully bothering a Native American protestor at the Indigenous March.” The tweet went viral quickly, being retweeted more than fourteen thousand times and the video viewed more than two and a half million times. Thousands of social media users on Twitter and other platforms shared and commented on Taitano’s video, many attempting to explain what was happening, and embellishing their version of events. One version that particularly caught on claimed that the youths were shouting ‘Build that wall!’ (a reference to President Trump’s controversial initiative to build a wall on the USA’s border with Mexico to curtail illegal immigration) amid the jeering.

By Saturday the story had snowballed into a viral trending topic. Taitano’s original YouTube video had gained over four and a half million views by morning, and some reposts with commentary getting even more views. Thousands of social media users, including multiple celebrities with large online followings and even the Roman Catholic diocese of Covington in Kentucky, condemned Nick for racist behavior towards Nathan. Many questioned why the Covington students were unaccompanied by their teachers at the time, and where their chaperones were. Covington High School and the Catholic diocese of Covington issued public apologies for the behaviour of the students and promised to investigate the matter and hold them accountable. Media outlets like CNN and the Washington Post tracked down Nathan to get his view to comment on what happened. He said that he was diffusing tension between the group of youths that Nick was part of, and another group of protesters at the same venue. He went ahead to lament the youth’s misdirected energy which could be instead put to better use if they really wanted to make America great again. Video of Nathan’s commentary also went viral once it was shared on social media, giving the narrative a clear direction: Nick’s group was harassing Nathan’s group. Until Nathan’s commentary there was no indication of any part played by a third group in what happened, as no other footage had been shared yet. A storm was brewing.

It soon became apparent that there was more to what happened than met the eye, and the videos shared thus far were not telling the whole story. Mainstream media began to investigate the personalities involved. CNN was able to discretely track down Taitano to get an exclusive witness account from her. She told CNN that according to what she recalled, a ‘shouting match’ began between the Covington students and four African-American men who were preaching about the Bible. Meanwhile, another video taken of the incident (longer than Taitano’s) was shared on social media after CNN and other media outlets had published their preliminary accounts of the controversy. The video showed some Black protestors and the Covington students engaging in a war of words (in which audible racial and homophobic slurs were heard from the Blacks) before another group which included Native American protestors came between them. News sources would later identify these Blacks as belonging to a group called the Hebrew Israelites. Although this video corroborated Nathan’s earlier commentary that he had gone to diffuse tension between the students and protestors, it opened the possibility that there could be another explanation for what happened. At this point a counter-narrative began developing that claimed Nick was a victim of circumstances and refuted any bad behaviour on the part of the Covington student group. This version also gained traction on Saturday and Sunday, and the two dominant narratives competed.

On Sunday evening, Nick Sandmann broke his silence over the controversy in a three-page detailed statement that he gave to CNN. He painted a totally different picture of what happened. According to him, the Covington students were in small groups doing sightseeing at the Lincoln Memorial when they encountered four Black protestors (the Hebrew Israelites) who began insulting them. The students then got permission from their adult chaperone to begin chanting loudly some high school sports chants to counter the insults. As the insults of the Blacks and the student chants went on, a group of Native American protestors who had drums and were being led by someone with a camera (possible reference to Taitano) approached the students. One of them began beating a drum, was given space by the rest, walked up to him and just stood in front of him beating his drum (Nathan). The two of them just looked at each other without saying anything while the student chants and hollering of the other protestors continued (this is what the original Taitano video shows). Nick said that during the short standoff he remained calm in order to diffuse the situation, even saying a silent prayer. He denied insulting or mocking Nathan, or that the students were shouting ‘build that wall’ as had been claimed earlier on social media. As Nick and Nathan faced each other, one of the other Native American protestors began to shout at the students that they had ‘stolen their land’ and they should ‘go back to Europe’, to which one of the students began to respond when Nick motioned to him not to engage. The confrontation ended suddenly when a Covington teacher arrived on the scene to call the students to their school’s buses. The students obeyed and walked away, Nick among them.

Nick wondered why Nathan had singled him out and what the Blacks and Native Americans were protesting about, adding he never had the desire to be part of a media spectacle and that it was the first time in his life he had been at the scene of a protest. He also pointed out in the statement that he had subsequently been insulted on social media and members of his family had even received death threats. He concluded by saying he would not comment on Nathan’s account of what happened, cautioning people against making presumptions and passing judgement based on a short Internet video which does not give all the facts, and expressing willingness to cooperate in any investigation of the matter. Nick later did an exclusive television interview with NBC on Tuesday 22nd, which was aired on Wednesday 23rd. Since Nick’s statement, the plot has thickened further. Nathan refuted Nick’s statement, but expressed hope that people would use the incident to understand each other better.

As part of its investigation, CNN looked into the Twitter account @2020fight that was the spark that ignited the controversy. The account bio showed it was set up in December 2016 and belonged to a California schoolteacher called Talia having a following of over forty thousand, but its photo was later determined to be that of a blogger based in Brazil. CNN approached Twitter with this information and Twitter began its own investigation into the account. By the Monday afternoon Twitter had suspended the account. On Tuesday, CNN learned from a source that the account was actually being operated within the USA but added that determining the exact location would be difficult because Internet users can hide their locations by using tools like Virtual Private Networks which are not illegal. CNN’s investigation also involved speaking to Information Technology professionals, information warfare experts and online content vetting specialists. They confirmed that the account’s tweet containing Taitano’s video was the decisive framer of the controversy and made subsequent opinion sway in favour of the ‘Nick was being racist’ narrative which they also interestingly observed was being amplified by a surprisingly high number of anonymous online accounts, something quite unusual for such stories. Multiple news agencies subsequently revealed their unsuccessful attempts to reach the owner of the account. It remains a mystery who is behind the suspended account.

On Monday, calls for calm and restraint before rushing to judgement became louder as more controversial personalities weighed in on the matter, a timely coincidence as America celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. day, a national public holiday observed annually in honour of the slain Black civil rights leader of the fifties and sixties. On Tuesday morning, President Trump unexpectedly jumped into the fray on Twitter, siding with Nick Sandmann and the Covington students by saying they were victims of fake news but their ordeal can be used to draw people together. Later on Tuesday after President Trump’s comments on Twitter, the CNN White House correspondent Abby Phillip reported that Sarah Sanders, the White House Press Secretary, had told him she had reached out to the family of Nick to offer support and had also invited them to the White House. Abby clarified that such a visit by Nick’s family could only take place after the Government Shutdown, which began on 22 December 2018 and ended on 25 January.

Covington High School was also closed temporarily on Tuesday, following multiple anonymous threats of violence made against it that have been condemned by many including the Kentucky chapter of the American Indian Movement. More footage that has emerged contradicts the claim the Covington students were disciplined during their outing on Friday. A Twitter account @roflinds posted a seven second video showing the Covington students shouting at a group of girls passing them, and ‘MAGA’ is heard. The account owner went further to describe how she was in the group of girls that walked past the boys. Other social media users have pointed out that Nathan Phillips on his part is no stranger to such controversy, having had a run-in with other students in Michigan in 2015 and later claiming he was racially abused. In the aftermath of this story, many people including celebrities and journalists who picked sides earlier on retracted their statements (some deleted posts and tweets) when it became clear the matter was not black and white as it initially appeared. Whichever side one was on, this controversy has yielded the latest cautionary tale about fake news and the hazards of jumping to conclusions too quickly. Cases like this one have happened before and some have been as controversial, but often the lessons that can be drawn from them are ignored. This is not the last time that such will happen, but will people learn anything this time? What would you do if you suddenly become prominent nationally in your country, whether or not it is the result of controversy? Would you be prepared to use your short-lived fame to good use?