Today is a public holiday in South Africa – Human Rights Day. There’s a certain irony in spending the day focusing on China’s President Xi Jinping’s visit to Vladimir Putin, knee-deep in a human rights disaster.
What one makes of the Ukraine crisis increasingly maps on where one lives. This is made clear by a remarkable new set of polling data recently published by the European Council on Foreign Relations ...
Category: Fake News
Indian Rumor Sparks Weekend of Baseless Speculation About Coup in China
All weekend there was wild speculation on both Indian and U.S. Twitter that Chinese President Xi Jinping had been placed under house arrest and that a military coup had taken place in Beijing. There was no coup, of course, ...
No, Nigeria Didn’t Ship 7,000 Human Penises to China
Nigerian social media is aflame with a rumor that a container of human penises was sent to China from the West African country. The rumor originated last year. It caused consternation in the Nigerian parliament before it was ...
No, Kenya Airways and China Road & Bridge Corp. Aren’t Teaming Up to Hire New Personnel
Kenyan scammers posted a fake job ad that claimed Kenya Airways has partnered with the China Road and Bridge Corporation to hire cleaners, toll attendants, and clerks. More than a dozen positions were advertised all with relatively generous salaries. But there ...
No, Uganda’s Entebbe International Airport Was Not Re-Branded “China Ebb International Airport”
There have been all sorts of rumors, misinformation, and outright fake news circulating over the past two weeks about the fate of the Entebbe International Airport in Uganda. Many have reported that the airport has been seized by China as a result of Uganda failing to repay ...
No, “Chinese-Africans” Were Not the First to Inhabit Japan’s Islands
This photo of Tibetan nuns has been circulating since 2018 and soon after a fake meme emerged on Facebook that claimed they were the first humans to inhabit some of Japan's islands. The team at AFP Fact Check dug into the ...
Analysis from Cobus van Staden
Xi Bets on Global South in Moscow
Fact Check: No, 73 Chinese Miners in the DRC Were Not Arrested for Kidnapping and Eating Children
A fake news story is circulating now on Congolese Twitter that claims 73 Chinese miners in Katanga province have been arrested for kidnapping children and then eating them (yes, cannibalism). The story is fake and was debunked by ...
AFP Fact Checks Misinformation Circulating About a Recent Fight in Sierra Leone That Went Viral
Regular readers of this newsletter will know that the viral video of a fight between a Chinese employee and safety inspectors at the Tonkolili mine took place in Sierra Leone, but apparently a lot of people online erroneously think it occurred in Kenya. ...
Russian and Chinese Propaganda Efforts in Africa
Combatting fake news, misinformation and outright propaganda is one of the foremost challenges confronting policymakers in Africa and elsewhere around the world. Some of that misleading information is distributed organically while other memes are intentionally deployed by governments to influence local ...
More Unsubstantiated Reports of Chinese Troop Deployments to Africa
Longstanding fears of Chinese troop deployments to Namibia resurfaced last week when a legislator claimed, without evidence, that 3,500 Chinese soldiers are currently in the country. Defense Minister Peter Hafeni Vilho didn't help matters when he refused to comment on the ...
China’s Embassy in Zimbabwe Swats Away Social Media Rumor that a Chinese Evacuation is Underway
Zhao Baogang, China's deputy ambassador at the embassy in Harare, called online reports that Chinese nationals were being evacuated from Zimbabwe "fake news." The rumor ...