It was Winston Churchill who said that ”A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”
How appropriate is that quote in the world we live in today. On Friday, someone on Twitter started a rumour that Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha had declared that university students will start wearing uniforms.
Whoever thought of this was crafty enough to edit a legit-looking Citizen TV screengrab, which convinced thousands across Twitter, Facebook and of course the biggest fake news avenue, Whatsapp.
‘Universities to Wear Uniforms‘ screamed the headline, with an accompanying picture of Magoha taken during his vetting by parliament.
Even some seemingly credible Kenyans took part in the spread of this fake news, which only made more Kenyans believe it.
” Education CS Prof. Magoha says all university students should wear school Uniforms. With all the problems facing education in this country? I don’t know whether to cry or laugh. This Kenya of ours yawa.” self proclaimed Eastleigh ‘mayor’ tweeted.
Others followed.
Magoha wants all university students to wear uniforms?. This old man is getting out of his mind. He can put on the uniforms himself if he wants. And that’s my VC at UoN.
— Kenya West (@KinyanBoy) May 10, 2019
https://twitter.com/IkeOjuok/status/1126822377436979201
It was soon revealed that the screengrab was actually an edit, and Magoha never actually said that.
We’re truly in the information age.
