Inside Zille's private Twitter account: Who she follows (yup, Juju is there) and what she's tweeted

On Monday, Helen Zille quit her public Twitter account, with a 1.4m following, after what she called the “grotesque treatment” of her granddaughter on the platform.

In a seven-part thread, Zille denounced the platform as a place where trolls were given a voice, mob-lynching took place and freedom of speech was curtailed.

She said she would have a private account, where she would accept people who were interested in rational debates.

So, who has she accepted?

At the time of publishing this article, Zille had accepted 172 followers. Among them are DA members and former Olympic swimmer Roland Schoeman.

And who does she follow? Well, Julius Malema sticks out on the list of 17 people.

Her new profile, @ZilleTweets, features an image of a troll.

She has tweeted twice, saying it's a “relief not to have to deal with 900,00 fakes”. Of her profile picture she said: “My only way of showing what I think of trolls.”