Former Kenyan CNN Journalist Idris Muktar Ibrahim was fired from his CNN job over two 10-year-old tweets.

He worked as a producer with CNN international whose headquarters are based in Atalanta. He came out to reveal how the tweets he shared in 2014 as a teenager under social media peer pressure mediocrity,  came to haunt him and cost him his luxurious job.

Ibrahim grew up in Korogocho slums and gained an interest in journalism after meeting with a reporter who was working on an assignment in the area.

He gained a footing in journalism as a 19-year-old undergraduate student on scholarship at USIU-Africa.

Idris rose through the ranks in his education after getting several scholarships. In 2020, he joined the Deutsche Welle as a junior correspondent for East Africa. Here, Idris struck gold with another scholarship to pursue a master’s degree.

This time, he flew to the University of California, Berkley to pursue a Journalism and Documentary Master’s program.

Idris graduated in May 2022 and soon after, a job from CNN International came calling. He would work as the Newsdesk Producer on the network’s international desk.

By this time, Idris had won a Foreign Correspondent Award and was a Mastercard and Human Rights Center fellow.

Trouble was stirred during the 2014 World Cup period. Idris says he was watching the world cup final between Messi’s Argentina and Germany.

He logged into Twitter and saw several trends such as #TeamGermany and #TeamHitler. As an ignorant kid in Koch (Korogocho), Idris was swayed by the trend and started tweeting about it.

“At the time I made the tweets I was just a teenager bursting under the shadow of a continent often left out in cultural warfare and playing catch up with Western inventions,” he said.

In 2022, Muktar was assigned to document the Israeli elections. A pro-Israeli media watchdog, Honest Reporting, decided to thoroughly investigate him.

“They dug deep into my tweets from when I was still a teen in the slums in July 2014 and found two that were, in my opinion, wholly abhorrent and unacceptable,” says Muktar.

Among the tweets that Honest Reporting took issue with was Muktar’s support of the German footballing brand, Bayern Munich. Hence his support for Adolf Hitler. They forwarded the issue to his employer, CNN international.

“I have shifted to team Germany after finding out that Messi supports Isreal #teamHitler,” reads the tweet sent on July 13, 2014.

“Modern-day freedom fighters, they defending their land. Yes, they are entitled to their armed struggle,” he said in another tweet.

Just like that, the high-flying career that Idris had built filled with success and an inspiring story from Korogocho slums, came tumbling down like it was all a dream. He was fired from his job with immediate effect.

CNN reduced Muktar to a tweet and labeled him an anti-semite and supporter of the terrorist organization Hamas.

“Now it feels like people like me weren’t meant to be here, not on this global stage,” he said.

He received a call from CNN’S Executive Director of Coverage and not even his global contacts nor the person who hired him could save him now.

“It’s company policy and due to the online uproar and the nature of this, we have to let you go. I am sorry, Idris.”

A snap and it was all gone. But Idris harbors no hard feelings at all toward his former employer.

“As the world’s leading news network, they cannot have someone in their employment tweeting vile bigotry,” he says adding that Honest Reporting also reached out to various outlets to retract the awards they had given him. Sabotaging at its finest.

Idris Muktar in response, shared an apology on Friday, November 18th, 2022, for his initial tweets.

“In 2014, I wrote some ignorant and hurtful tweets. I regret having done so and unreservedly apologize for the pain my words caused, especially to the Jewish Community,” he tweeted.

“They were offensive and I must take responsibility. I was young, new to social media and blurted out,” he added.

CNN had initially failed to take action but Honest Reporting called on its social media followers to contact the international broadcaster.

After an online uproar, CNN responded to Honest Reporting.

“Idris was employed as a freelancer by CNN. We were not aware of these tweets, which were published before we began working with him. We have informed him that we will no longer be working with him in the future.”