SA born YouTuber pranks Katie Hopkins for 'spreading hatred'

Controversial UK commentator Katie Hopkins was fooled into accepting a C*U*N*T award by a Knysna-born prankster, who took her on to expose her hate speech.

Josh Pieters, 26, has 1.2 million followers on YouTube.

He created a fake organisation called the Cape Town Collective for Freedom of Speech, with a friend. Roping in his father and some actors, he tricked the right-wing media personality, who has just had her Twitter account suspended for violating the platform's rules, into believing she had met some supporters. 

He went as far as paying for her flight and hotel to attend a swanky event in Prague, in the Czech Republic, at which she was invited to accept an award: the Campaign to Unify the Nation Trophy.

Its acronym should have given it away, but Hopkins was visibly delighted and in her acceptance speech, spewed venom against people who are autistic and epileptic, among others.

Pieters also highlighted some of the views she has espoused in recent years in the video he posted of the prank, in which she roundly slates everyone from Muslims, to overweight people and stay-at-home moms, as well as people with disabilities.

Explaining his motives, Pieters said: “The truth is, there's an awful lot of hate in this world, and people like Katie Hopkins spread that hate, and make money from it. And she can do that, because she has freedom of speech. But so do I. So I used it to combat her spreading hatred by playing on her ego and making her look a little bit silly.”

The London-based Center for Countering Digital Hate, meanwhile, stated "Twitter has accepted that Katie Hopkins violated their hateful conduct policy and temporarily locked her account, following our meeting with them on Tuesday." It added, "Now they must permanently remove her from their platform."