Your breasts are like those of a cow. This was one of the nasty messages directed at a teenage girl on one of the local WhatsApp channel groups that have allegedly infiltrated schools.
Children are added to the groups without their consent, and they end up being body- or slut-shamed.
The cow message on the platform was accompanied by a picture of the girl and led to the Digital Law Company approaching the Johannesburg high court last week with an urgent application to have the channel shut down.
On Friday, the high court ordered that Meta Platforms and its WhatsApp business must, to the extent that is technically feasible, remove the offensive profiles and channels. Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, was also ordered to release information about who was behind the accounts.
Speaking to Sowetan, a 15-year-old Ekurhuleni boy who was in the same WhatsApp group as the girl, said that while not everything shared on the group was always true, it did push some children very far.