Hoax recruitment website for Sri Lanka's election commission circulates ahead of presidential polls

"Sri Lanka staff recruitment Election Commission 2024" read a Sinhala-language Facebook post on August 13, 2024. 

"The Election Commission of Sri Lanka has opened an application portal to recruit new staff members to fill existing vacancies for the upcoming 2024 election. It is free for all interested Sri Lankan citizens to apply, and the work has already started. Don't miss this great opportunity. Click on the below link and apply" the caption read. 

A link in the post directed users to a website with a blogspot URL, rather than the official Election Commission address.

The website featured the national flag and the emblem of Sri Lanka, repeated the lines about the recruitment drive and asked candidates to fill out their details, including their birthday, phone number and e-mail address (archived links here and here). 

Applicants were also told to share the website "with five groups or 15 friends" on WhatsApp to proceed.

The screenshot below shows the false Facebook post: 

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Screenshot of the false Facebook post, captured on August 13

A similar claim was shared here and here on Facebook. It was also shared on WhatsApp, as shown in the screenshot below:

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Below is a screenshot of the page that appeared after users clicked on the blogspot URL: 

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Screenshot of the blogpost, captured on August 13

Sri Lanka will hold its presidential election on September 21, 2024, the first such vote since the unprecedented economic crisis of 2022 (archived link).

The island nation's economy crashed and months of protests toppled then-president Gotabaya Rajapaksa. 

Fake website

Saman Sri Ratnayake, commissioner general of elections at the Elections Commission, confirmed to AFP that the supposed recruitment drive is a fake.

"We have not published anything sort of this. We have already complained to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Sri Lanka police. And we have made a complaint at Sri Lanka CERT," he said, in reference to the country's cyber security centre.

"Even if we want to recruit for the Election Commission we cannot do it. There is a recruitment process through the civil service. It has to come through that."

Charuka Damunupola, Sri Lanka CERT's lead information security engineer, told AFP it had received several complaints. 

"We received a complaint from the Election Commission last Friday. We removed that domain by Monday morning. However, we have received several other complaints from different sources. Similar domains are being shared online," he said.

"We advised the Election Commission, and they have already made a complaint at CID. More of these could appear in the coming weeks. We advise users to be careful and not to share their personal information."