{"id":28080,"date":"2013-09-25T14:58:35","date_gmt":"2013-09-25T14:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=28080"},"modified":"2013-09-25T14:58:35","modified_gmt":"2013-09-25T14:58:35","slug":"nairobi-conspiracism-from-a-popular-kenyan-tweeter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=28080","title":{"rendered":"Nairobi conspiracism from a popular Kenyan tweeter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ by <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> &#8212; &#8220;certain people were warned to stay away&#8221; as a recurring theme in terror attacks ]<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p>Conspiracism was, I&#8217;m afraid, inevitable: it&#8217;s in the air, worldwide. What&#8217;s interesting here is the evident local popularity of the guy who posted this tweet:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p>More info emerging. American nationals were warned about impending <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%23WestgateAttack&amp;src=hash\">#WestgateAttack<\/a>. That&#39;s why non of them died. <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%23WestgateAttack&amp;src=hash\">#WestgateAttack<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Robert Alai (@RobertAlai) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RobertAlai\/statuses\/382812231848562689\">September 25, 2013<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This was posted early this morning.  <\/p>\n<p>Back in August 2012, the <em>Nairobi Wire<\/em> site ran a piece headlined <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nairobiwire.com\/2012\/08\/twitter-goes-silent-as-robert-alai-is.html\">Twitter Goes Silent As Robert Alai Is Arrested<\/a> which referred to <strong>Robert Alai<\/strong> as the &#8220;tweep in chief&#8221; &#8212; so we can deduce that Alai already had quite a following at least a year prior to the Westgate tragedy.  As of this time of writing, he has 88,046 followers: some may be following him for the lulz, but surely not all of them.  <\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s just call this an early indicator of an undertow in the currents rippling around Nairobi and the Westgate Mall event. It is significant (I wouldn&#8217;t go nearly so far as to say important) as one small piece of a much larger cultural puzzle. And pattern-wise, it&#8217;s a local match for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.snopes.com\/rumors\/israel.asp\">Jews were warned to stay away meme<\/a> that circulated after 9\/11.<\/p>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>H\/t <strong>Laura Seay<\/strong> for <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/texasinafrica\/status\/382844256127180800\">pointing us<\/a> to this &#8220;Kenyan Truther&#8221; tweet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ by Charles Cameron &#8212; &#8220;certain people were warned to stay away&#8221; as a recurring theme in terror attacks ] . Conspiracism was, I&#8217;m afraid, inevitable: it&#8217;s in the air, worldwide. What&#8217;s interesting here is the evident local popularity of the guy who posted this tweet: More info emerging. American nationals were warned about impending [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,526,151,961,393,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-461","category-charles-cameron","category-conspiracy","category-nairobi","category-twitter","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28080"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28091,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28080\/revisions\/28091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}