Homa Bay Woman Representative Gladys Wanga on Saturday, June 13, was forced to set the record straight after reports emerged that she had allegedly jumped ship to Deputy President William Ruto's camp.
A post by an account which she identified as a parody, alluded to the legislator leaving the Orange Democratic Party (ODM) due to frustrations within the party.
"If some powerful cartels in ODM won't stop harassing me, I will declare my full and unconditional support for DP William Ruto and ditch the dictatorial party. Enough is enough! I'm tired," the post read.
The post which went up at 12 p.m had garnered over 111 retweets in two hours with a number of Twitter users pointing out that it was a fake account.
Wanga, through her official account also exposed the account as being a fake stating, "Ignore the fake news and tweets from the usual suspects."
The outspoken MP isn't the only politician who's had to address fake reports by malicious characters.
In April 2020, Narc-Kenya Party leader Martha Karua responded to some reports she waded into the Jubilee purge by warning President Uhuru Kenyatta about the Deputy President.
Karua warned against being dragged into the wrangles stating, "Fake news alert! To authors of fake news and especially those allied to the Deputy President, desist from dragging my name into the Jubilee Party's internal dirty wars. I do not support Tanga Tanga or Kieleweke and any claims that I have made a call to the president of Kenya on behalf of his deputy is false."
Kenyans on social media are increasingly falling for fake news and sharing the same with friends and family without taking time to verify.
“Be sceptical of headlines. False news stories often have catchy headlines. If shocking claims in the headline sound unbelievable, they probably are.
“Look closely at the link. A fishy or look-alike link may be a warning sign of false news. Many false news sites mimic authentic news sources by making small changes to the link. You can go to the site to compare the link to established sources,” digital media expert, Brian Muuo advises.
A 2019 report by the Media Council of Kenya revealed that social media was the leading source of fake news at 36 per cent of falsified reports with radio stations coming in second at 28 per cent.
