Clickbait post uses fake free internet data offer to lure Facebook followers in Ethiopia
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on June 28, 2022 at 14:39
- 2 min read
- By James OKONG'O, AFP South Africa, AFP Ethiopia
Copyright © AFP 2017-2025. Any commercial use of this content requires a subscription. Click here to find out more.
The post was published on Facebook on June 20, 2022, and has since been shared more than 100 times.
Written in Afaan Oromoo, the caption translates to: “Congratulations, you can get free 30-day Facebook data here. Please follow the following steps and access the free data. Please click on the link below, log in to your Facebook account and use the free service.”
The post includes a screenshot purported to be from Ethio telecom, asking Facebook users to enter their “correct password and telephone number” to log in and obtain the free data.
The text in the screenshot reads: “We offer free Facebook internet for a month. Please comment on the post with the word ‘free’ and share this message in ten groups to get the data”.
However, the claim is false.
Clickbait post
AFP Fact Check found that the link does not send Facebook users to a portal providing free data.
Instead, it directs them to a cryptocurrency website with a broken URL. Meanwhile, the screenshot seems to have come from one of a number of accounts impersonating the official page of Ethio telecom.
AFP Fact Check found several Facebook accounts called “Ethio Tele” featuring the logo of Ethio telecom (here, here and here). Although they did not feature this exact post, there were other similar bogus deals.
Also, the promotion is not on any of Ethio telecom's official social media pages (here and here) or on its website.
Furthermore, the company's name is not abbreviated to “Ethio Tele” as it appears in the screenshot.
The legitimate Ethio telecom Facebook page is verified with a blue tick and has more than a million followers.
Ethio telecom confirmed that no such promotion existed.
“Ethio telecom is not currently running such a promotion. The screenshot is from a fake page. We have issued alerts in the past cautioning our clients against online fraudsters,” the company told AFP Fact Check.
Is there content that you would like AFP to fact-check? Get in touch.
Contact us
