No, this is not a real tweet by South Africa’s President Ramaphosa attacking Trump

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A screenshot shared widely on Facebook purports to show a tweet by South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa retorting to US President Donald Trump’s controversial 2018 comments on land reform in South Africa. According to the screenshot, Ramaphosa supposedly hit back with a barb about mass shootings in the United States. But this tweet was not posted by the South African leader. There is no record of Ramaphosa tweeting such a message at Trump, and the South African president’s spokeswoman confirmed that it was not posted by him. 

The screenshot, which has been shared by dozens of different accounts on Facebook, shows two tweets. We’ve archived a few different Facebook posts sharing it, here, here and here.

A screenshot of one of the many Facebook posts sharing the false Ramaphosa tweet, as seen on August 22, 2019

The first tweet is from Trump, and is real -- you can still find it on his account, posted on August 23, 2018.

As reported by AFP, that tweet sparked a backlash in South Africa at the time, with the government accusing Trump of fuelling racial tensions over land ownership with inaccurate information.

The second tweet in the screenshot appears to have been written by Ramaphosa. 

“I have asked Police Minister @GenBheki_Cele to closely study the USA mass shootings and large scale killings of unarmed civilians. “USA Government is now killing unarmed African Americans”. @realDonaldTrump @FoxNews #FloridaShooting,” it reads.

By reversing the situation to imply that Ramaphosa was deeply concerned about American problems, the tweet suggests that it was absurd for Trump to ask one of his ministers to look into land reform in South Africa. 

The supposed response from Ramaphosa went down well online, with many Facebook users signalling their approval at the comeback. 

Many Facebook users applauded Ramaphosa for the retort, which he never actually made

However, the tweet was not posted from Ramaphosa’s account. 

No date appears alongside the tweet in the screenshot, which makes it more difficult to verify -- all we know is that the screenshot was apparently captured 20 seconds after the tweet was posted.

But an advanced search on Twitter finds no results showing that Ramaphosa has ever mentioned the handles of South Africa’s minister of police, Bheki Cele, or Trump.  

An advanced Twitter search of mentions by President Ramaphosa of police minister Cele...
... and an advanced Twitter search of mentions by President Ramaphosa of President Trump

 

You would also expect such a retort by South Africa’s president to have attracted international attention, given that Trump’s original comments prompted widespread media coverage. But not a single article can be found online to corroborate the tweet.

Finally we reached out to the presidency. Asked whether the tweet was a genuine post by Ramaphosa, his spokeswoman Khulesa Diko told AFP Fact-Check: “No it’s not.”

So where did the tweet come from?

In the screenshot the Twitter handle of the person calling themselves “President Cyril Ramaphosa” is hidden, so it is possible that the person simply changed their user name and photo to impersonate the South African leader.

In fact, there’s some evidence that this was the case. A Twitter search for the whole text of the tweet returned this result from September 2018, quoting a post from someone else which they identify as a “parody account reply”.

A screenshot taken on August 28, 2019 of the quoted tweet on Twitter

The original tweet by the user @cameronoor1 is no longer available, and the account has been suspended. 

But comments on the unavailable tweet show that it did indeed tag Cele, Trump and Fox News, as seen in the screenshot. Some users called the account fake and tagged the real Ramaphosa to alert him of the imposter.

A screenshot taken on August 28, 2019 of the replies on the tweet that is no longer available

We also found a similar tweet dated August 27, 2018: 

A screenshot taken on August 28, 2019 of a similar misleading tweet

It refers to the shooting at a video game tournament the previous day, August 26, in Jacksonville, Florida. As reported by AFP, the shooter killed two people before turning the gun on himself.

While the tweet may have been intended as a tongue-in-cheek reply to Trump’s land reform comments, it may be misleading as this shooting did not specifically target African Americans. While one of the two men killed was black, survivors said the tournament had included gamers of different backgrounds and that the gunman shot indiscriminately.

It looks like the tweet in the screenshot was taken from someone posing as Ramaphosa online. Alternatively, it’s possible that they used an online generator to produce the post. This AFP fact-check about fabricated Trump tweets on Canada, and this post about false posts from Zimbabwe, show how such websites can be used to spread misinformation. 

What actually happened after Trump tweeted about land reform? 

South Africa’s government was angered by Trump’s tweet, which touched on the overwhelmingly white ownership of farmland 25 years after the end of apartheid -- a hugely sensitive topic. 

As reported by AFP, Ramaphosa is pushing for “expropriation without compensation” -- raising the threat of enforced seizures that has alarmed investors.  

However, this would require changing South Africa’s constitution. Trump’s tweet had suggested that white-owned farms were already subject to land seizures.

Trump’s call for a US investigation into “expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers” also suggested a link between non-existent land seizures and violence against farm owners in South Africa, another controversial topic.

AfriForum, an Afrikaner rights group which collects statistics on farm attacks, said there had been 20 murders in the first five months of 2019. However, there is no evidence to suggest a direct link between any of these murders and land seizures under a government policy which has yet to be implemented.

Lindiwe Sisulu, who was South Africa’s international relations minister at the time, addressed Trump’s tweet at a media briefing on August 27, 2018. She said Trump’s tweet had been based on false information and lobbying by groups that “seek to derail and frustrate the land redistribution programme”. 

Ramaphosa later echoed this, saying of Trump: “Whoever gave him that information was completely wrong.” He made no reference to the shooting in Florida, or US mass shootings in general.

As detailed in this AFP fact-check, land ownership remains heavily concentrated among white South Africans, who make up just 7.8 percent of the population.

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