Did the Standard newspaper tweet that it hadn’t published a certain story about William Ruto, Kenya’s deputy president?
At least two Facebook users have posted a screenshot of what seems to be a tweet by the Standard. It shows a newspaper article, headlined “Ruto elected to serve at the global governance body”, with “FAKE” stamped across it.
Fake versions of the newspaper have been circulating on Facebook recently. Is this one of them?
A Google search for the headline leads to the original article, published on the newspaper’s website on 31 May 2020.
We also looked for the article in the Standard’s online print edition. We found it on page 20 of the newspaper for Sunday 31 May.
And we could not find the tweet on the Standard’s verified Twitter timeline. The tweet describing the article as fake is itself fake.
The article reported that Ruto had been “elected to serve in the Steering Committee of the Open Government Partnership”.
The Open Government Partnership, or OGP, describes itself as “an organisation of reformers inside and outside of government, working to transform how government serves its citizens”. It includes 78 countries and many civil society organisations, representing more than 2 billion people.
The OGP announced on 29 May that Kenya had been elected to the steering committee. It lists Ruto among the Kenyans on the committee. – Grace Gichuhi
At least two Facebook users have posted a screenshot of what seems to be a tweet by the Standard. It shows a newspaper article, headlined “Ruto elected to serve at the global governance body”, with “FAKE” stamped across it.
Fake versions of the newspaper have been circulating on Facebook recently. Is this one of them?
Standard did publish article
A Google search for the headline leads to the original article, published on the newspaper’s website on 31 May 2020.
We also looked for the article in the Standard’s online print edition. We found it on page 20 of the newspaper for Sunday 31 May.
And we could not find the tweet on the Standard’s verified Twitter timeline. The tweet describing the article as fake is itself fake.
The article reported that Ruto had been “elected to serve in the Steering Committee of the Open Government Partnership”.
The Open Government Partnership, or OGP, describes itself as “an organisation of reformers inside and outside of government, working to transform how government serves its citizens”. It includes 78 countries and many civil society organisations, representing more than 2 billion people.
The OGP announced on 29 May that Kenya had been elected to the steering committee. It lists Ruto among the Kenyans on the committee. – Grace Gichuhi
For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false
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Further Reading
[email protected]: The challenges of working across Africa
Misinformation knows no borders and Africa Check often responds to similar false claims from country to country.
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