A website is spreading a false claim that the US has added 10 countries to its visa waiver program

The VWP allows most citizens of countries on the list to travel to the United States for business or tourism for stays of up to 90 days without needing a visa.

The article, which we’ve archived here, claims that the US has added Argentina, Cameroon, Georgia, Hong Kong, Jamaica, Kenya, Malawi, the Seychelles, South Africa and Uruguay to the VWP list.

It was published on a website calling itself “AP News” -- an apparent attempt to mimic the US news agency Associated Press. Some readers indeed took the article for a genuine AP article:

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Screenshot taken on May 24, 2019 of tweet that included the false article

The same text was shared on this Cameroonian news website, the Journal du Kwatt.

But there is no trace of such an announcement on any official US government website, and none of the countries appear on the list of 38 nations currently included under the Visa Waiver Program.

Some online users appeared unconvinced -- tagging the AP and the US embassy in Kenya, asking them to confirm if it was true or not.

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Some social media users questioned the veracity of the article

The US embassy in Kenya dismissed the claims as false in a tweet on May 17.

This is a false story. For real information on the visa waiver program, go to https://t.co/r5uGGMs3qp pic.twitter.com/9V4el3ZfU4

— U.S. Embassy Nairobi (@USEmbassyKenya) May 17, 2019

We also checked with the State Department in Washington, DC who told us: "This information contained in this article is incorrect. The US Department of State has made no recent announcement on the Visa Waiver Program.”

Websites spreading false information sometimes attempt to imitate well-known news organisations to gain credibility. The US magazine The Atlantic, for example, recently described how a fake website, theatlatnic.com as opposed to theatlantic.com, was created as part of a pro-Iran misinformation campaign.

In the case of the visa waiver story, the website’s address -- news-ap.com -- is different from that used on the official AP site, ap.org. The imitation site also doesn’t use official AP branding. And finally, the writing style doesn’t match that used by the news agency.

For instance, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is casually referred to as ‘Mike’, contrary to the AP’s customary style of using people’s surnames when mentioning them for the second time in an article.