A graphic circulating on Facebook since late February 2022 appears to show a social media post from South African news website News24. It was viewed more than 900,000 times in a few days.
“BREAKING: Vladimir Putin has issued statements warning ANC government to desist from meddling their nose on the Russian affairs,” its badly written text reads, below the News24 logo.
“He went further and said ‘ANC regime must know that , the war is meant for soldiers not criminals looting from the poor.’”
The ANC is the African National Congress, South Africa’s ruling party. Putin is the president of Russia. On 24 February, Russia launched a land, sea and air invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.
No sign of report or evidence of claim
A reverse image search yielded various posts containing the same graphic on Twitter, 9GAG and other social media sites.
But no record of any corresponding article could be found on the News24 website or social media pages. Africa Check spoke to News24 public editor George Claassen, who confirmed that no such article had been published by the outlet.
Africa Check could not find any evidence to suggest that the Russian president had issued any such statement to the ANC.
Tip: If a social media post appears to show a headline or excerpt of a news article, a link to the article will usually be provided. If there is no link to the article, and if the text of the headline or excerpt contains grammatical or other language errors, it is likely to be fake.
Republish our content for free
For publishers: what to do if your post is rated false
A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”, “altered”, “partly false” or “missing context”. This could have serious consequences. What do you do?
Click on our guide for the steps you should follow.
Publishers guideAfrica Check teams up with Facebook
Africa Check is a partner in Meta's third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media.
The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it.
You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how.
Add new comment