So far, no-one knows who the webmaster is. And tracking down advertisers on the website is also proving to be a difficult task. According to the website, www.searchinstructor.com/www.toilet.wen.ru, toilet wen.ru makes about R32 482 on ads daily. Search Instructor also states that 1 316 782 pages are viewed per day. Despite its simple design and layout, the site is user-friendly. Users of the site can find their province/ town/ school/ church easily and can post anything that tickles their fancy just as easily.

On the website, people freely trash the reputation of people in their townships or schools, and no-one can trace who they are or even regulate what they were posting on the wall of the website. According to website user, Tshepang Malete, the website has gained popularity in his township because it protects users' identity. “No-one can trace you after you have written your nonsense on the wall,” said Malete.

It is alleged that a girl in KwaZulu-Natal committed suicide after she was slandered on the website. Popular radio DJ, Linda Sibiya, also had a tough time trying to extinguish the stink which was posted about him on the website, and a neighbour of mine who resides in Soshanguve had a post written about her that falsely stated that she had HIV/AIDS and that she sleeps around. She says she did not know about the website until she started noticing people talking about her while others were insinuating that she is dying. From her experience, the website should definitely be regulated, as people tend to write ‘hogwash’ about others and their posts are ill-informed and legally would be termed as defamation of character.

Commenting on my blogpost on the topic, Sarah wrote; “It's so sad what's happening in the world nowadays. I mean, what is the reason for people to be writing bad comments about people they don't even know? That stupid thing should be banned with immediate effect. We have kids and don't want them to take the examples of these bad people.”


While Zanele wrote: “What I hate the most about this evil toilet site is that kids are being exposed to porn and it's easy to download sexual content. Kids are even being asked to record their own sexual videos and share them with others on the site. Young girls are being exposed as having sex with older men who don’t show their faces on the videos. Whoever is behind this website seems to be on a mission to destroy the youth of South Africa. We must come together and destroy this rubbish.”

A student also commented by writing: I, as a learner, fail to understand how a person can cause such conflicts, fights, death through a website... whoever created this is very stupid, kids are now fighting at schools because of this and some people just create lies to destroy people. Even people who use it are cowards and stupid, because they destroying schools and supporting the monster that created this.”

In Cape Town, a petition was created by Calvin Dhladhla to ban a similar website, outoilet. On his website, Dhadhla complains that the toilet website is destroying his community. “This website is breaking up families, friends and marriages. All the stuff said on this website is purely to demolish the reputations of individuals. We want it shut down before people get hurt. Many are very angry, and the culprits, knowing that there is no way to get caught, carry on destroying the lives of the people of South Africa.”

Recently, Pastor Vusi Dube wrote to the Daily News pleading for assistance in removing the website, adding that it is destroying the youth and that we should discontinue usage of the website.

Despite the calls to remove the website, its daily traffic keeps increasing by the minute. If you want to paste a comment on the website, you have to wait 15 minutes in a queue. I was even scared that writing this article would serve as promotion of the website and that I might indirectly prompt people into having a look - as they say, even bad publicity is good publicity.

Host site, Wen.ru, continues to protect the identity of webmasters who create such websites. The Russian host also encourages other citizens in other countries to create such websites. At this point, it is unclear how Wen.ru makes its profit from this website, and it is unclear how much the webmasters of such websites stand to gain from it. As the youth in South Africa continue to trash each other and destroy other people’s reputation, wen.ru and the unknown South African webmaster continue to rake in cash from the increasing daily log-in figures.

Are 'toilet sites good, bad or ugly? Please add your thoughts to our blog.