A website named “WILLIAM RUTO KSH 30,000 YOUTH EMPOWERMENT/BUSINESS SUPPORT” is being posted widely on Facebook.
The site’s homepage shows a photo of Kenya’s deputy president William Ruto.
“WILLIAM RUTO On March 27th, 2022. Offer a matching Grant/Youth Empowerment of KSH 30,000 to individual to support youth and all Citizens,” reads poorly written text on the page.
“The idea for the introduction of this Great Empowerment and offer is to make Our Country to become more self-reliant and economy buoyant in additions to what we have been doing. We promise to make our country better everyday. Get Your Own 30,000 By Filling The Form Below,” it adds.
Users are told to fill out a form to apply.
The link to the site has been posted on Facebook groups with thousands of followers. Most have similar captions. Other Facebook groups with the link can be seen here, here and here.
But is the youth empowerment grant legit? We checked.
Engagement bait
Clear grammatical errors in the Facebook posts and on the site are early signs that it’s a scam.
Like many other scam sites we’ve checked before, as soon as we completed the “application” process we were told to click the “invite Friends/Group” button and “share this information with 15 friends or 5 groups on Whatsapp”.
This is an engagement bait scam, where people are asked to interact by liking, commenting or sharing. In such scams, the more people interact with a post, the greater its reach. There’s usually no reward for that.
It’s also likely to be an attempt to steal users’ valuable personal information.
Africa Check has previously debunked similar scams. To protect yourself against online fraudsters, read our guide to Facebook scams and how to spot them.
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.
Further Reading
A cloudy outlook? What we are learning about election disinformation in Africa and what you can do about it
As nearly a dozen countries prepare to hold presidential elections, the spread of disinformation is inflaming Africa's political landscape.
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