murathe, the Jubilee Party vice chairman, says that he has no social media accounts.
A Twitter account claiming to be that of David Murathe, the Jubilee Party vice-chairperson, and posting misinformation in his name is a HOAX.
The account’s timeline contains a number of posts, including a tweet alleging Murathe disclosed he would step down from his position at the ruling party if the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) wins in the Kiambaa parliamentary by-elections.
The by-elections were conducted on 15 July 2021, and the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) declared UDA’s John Njuguna the winner. Njuguna garnered 21,773 votes in the hotly contested poll while Jubilee’s Njama Kariri got 21,263 votes.
The tweet in question is pinned on the timeline of the Twitter account, whose bio indicates that it belongs to Murathe.
However, Murathe neither made the remarks nor posted such a tweet. In a text response to PesaCheck, Murathe said he does not have a Twitter or Facebook account.
PesaCheck has looked into the Twitter account claiming to be that of David Murathe, the Jubilee Party vice-chairperson, and posting misinformation in his name, and finds it to be a HOAX.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Simon Muli and edited by PesaCheckc chief copy editor Rose Lukalo. The article was approved for publication by managing editor Enock Nyariki.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations