{"id":15585,"date":"2010-10-04T13:27:00","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T11:27:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2010-10-04T13:27:00","modified_gmt":"2010-10-04T11:27:00","slug":"pigspotter-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/15585-pigspotter-interview.html","title":{"rendered":"Pigspotter interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

M&G<\/strong>: When and why did you start your website pigspotter.co.za<\/a> and tweeting about speed traps?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: I started tweeting on the 28th of July 2010 purely to report to a small number of people where the cops were hiding and trapping illegally as well as to help friends avoid wasting time sitting in roadblocks. And to stop the police victimising people during random pullovers. As for the website, I have no affiliation to it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: Have you been in contact with the person who is doing the website?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: I have the guy’s information and will be requesting he shuts it down. [He put it up] after I started tweeting, which is why he is simply posting my feed … surely it’s an offence of some type.<\/strong><\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: What good do you hope will come out of your tweets?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: As this thing has grown, so have I. I’ve received so many complaints from people getting victimised and abused during these roadblocks. And although some do report it, many don’t due to fear. I’d like to try and change that, to try stop corruption, raise road safety awareness and make the police change their focus of speed trapping from a money-making affair to an attempt to help slow the traffic by visible policing, hence preventing accidents and stopping road deaths.<\/strong><\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: Has anything negative has come of it?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: Well, recently some police have been more visible while trapping, loads of stories of corruption have come to light and there has been so much publicity on this whole PigSpotter issue, that it gives me a better platform to help expose the corruption and raise awareness. So besides the occasional threats I receive, I don’t think there has been anything negative.<\/strong><\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: What kind of threats?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: One from a @vusimlambo, who has stated that he hopes the police adopt a “Shoot-to-kill” frame of mind when they catch me, constantly refers to me as a chimpanzee and as “going 6 feet under”. Another idiot is “Spottercatcher”. He even sent an email suggesting we meet face to face so we can “sort this out”, not sure what THIS is exactly.<\/strong><\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: Before Aki Anastasiou wrote about you in his column in the Star<\/em> in mid-September how many followers did you have on Twitter?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: 5 300<\/strong><\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: And now??
PigSpotter<\/strong>: 20 628 as of 21.42 (September 27)<\/strong><\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: What about the past two weeks has surprised you the most?<\/p>\n

PigSpotter<\/strong>: The police completely over-reacting and even attempting to make this a racial attack! I’m surprised by the size of Wayne Minnaar’s ego and his defiant attitude towards me<\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: What do you mean?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: On 3Talk with Noeleen<\/em> on SABC, I said I was willing to apologise to Wayne for referring to them as porcine products and to work with them to make this a positive thing. He came on saying he has no intention of ever meeting me, and wants to see this go to court.<\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: What comments have you received that you didn’t expect??
PigSpotter<\/strong>: One that stands out is “When you’re gonna rape, who do you call? @PigSpotter” and that was said by an absolutely idiotic guy called @Spottercatcher<\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: It looks like you switch between the Twitter name of “Cliff — that’s all”? and Pigspotter”. Is that because of the criticism you have received?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: I do not change my user name; it’s always PigSpotter. My name within PigSpotter is “Cliff – that’s all”.<\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: What’s your day job?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: I’d rather that remains secret.<\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: Do your family members know what you’re up to? If so, what do they have say about it?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: “What I’m up to” seems to imply that what I’m doing is illegal or criminal. Yes, they know, and they’re supportive.<\/strong><\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: What do you think about the metro cops?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: As said before, those that do their job with a friendly and understanding manner, I have the utmost respect for. Those that intentionally solicit bribes make me sick.<\/strong><\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: What’s your suggestion for reducing road deaths?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: Raising awareness and increasing visible policing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: What, besides getting arrested, would make you stop pigspotting?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: Nothing, besides my phone getting stolen and contract getting stopped.<\/strong><\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: How do you get tweets out so quickly without retweeting?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: I’m quick on the draw. Almost don’t even need to look at my phone to edit the tweets.<\/strong><\/p>\n

M&G<\/strong>: Anything else we should know about you and your mission?
PigSpotter<\/strong>: I plan to make a difference. Watch this space.<\/p>\n

Pigspotter discussion<\/strong><\/a> << For or against?<\/p>\n

Mail & Guardian<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between speed-trapping tweets PigSpotter told Tanya Pampalone @tanyapampalone about Wayne Minnaar's ego, PigSpotter imposters and what would stop him from tweeting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15585"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}