Buju verdict goes viral
Published:Wednesday | February 23, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Mark Beckford, Online Content Coordinator
Buju Banton's trial and its verdict held Jamaica and the world transfixed as it unfolded.
Buju, whose real name is Mark Myrie, was found guilty yesterday on three cocaine-related charges.
The verdict took the online world by storm. The Jamaica Gleaner, which broke the story to the world through micro-blogging website Twitter, had its stream choked by retweets and responses to the Buju verdict.
On its website, www.jamaica-gleaner.com, the story of Buju's verdict received more than 2,300 shares on social-networking website Facebook, more than 280 retweets and 170 comments within hours, surpassing all other local news websites.
Since the start of the trial last week, which was covered by The Gleaner's Daraine Luton, stories related to the Buju Banton trial received hundreds of thousands of page views on www.jamaica-gleaner.com.
Jamaicans and others were also very vocal in response to the verdict. On The Gleaner's Facebook page, several persons commented on the verdict.
Gleaner Facebook user Georgiana West-Hammitt commented, "not an easy road, just hold the faith mi artiste, and keep praying, our creator specialise in the impossible".
Another Gleaner Facebook user, Shanelle Stargirl Stullesha, said, "a hope them no give the man no long years cause when fi them artiste do nothing, a one year them get r how much days a community service".
On The Gleaner's Twitter account, hundreds of persons retweeted the website's story and commented.
User @selbsage said, "lesson from buju: there's a great disparity which exists between moral thought, moral action & moral behaviour!"
Another user @CeeCee_LeonaB said, "honestly, the #Buju thing is rather unfortunate but at the same time I think the 'legal advisers' didn't do him justice".