Dirco slammed for false white population claim and typo
Dirco posted South Africa has largest white population in southern hemisphere and hashtagged it #unty instead of unity.
The South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco) has been criticized for a false claim regarding the country's white population and a spelling error on their official social media account. The tweet suggested that South Africa has the largest white population in the southern hemisphere, which was later corrected, but the misspelled hashtag "#unty(indiversity)" remained.
Dirco's communication team appears to lack proficiency in basic geography and spelling. Reputation management expert Dionne Collett of Take Note Reputation Management stated that while mistakes happen, official government communication should adhere to a higher standard. The claim that South Africa has the largest white population is vastly inaccurate; Brazil, alone, has a white population of 88.2 million, nearly 20 times that of South Africa's estimated 4.5 million.
Chile and Argentina also have significantly larger white populations than South Africa. These errors raise questions about the approval process for official communications from a department responsible for South Africa's foreign relations. Social media posts should be subject to the same scrutiny as other organizational communication, with multiple reviews before publication to ensure accuracy and truthfulness.
The amended post fixed the substantive error, but the misspelled hashtag "#UntyInDiversity" still remained, indicating a potential lack of thorough editing.
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