Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 16-11-2018

(Twitter: @FaizelPatel143)

The head of social media law at Shepstone & Wylie says there may be huge legal consequences for people who set up websites for the sole purpose of sharing fake news.

A News24 investigation has revealed that a 29-year old University of South Africa (Unisa) employee was the creator and owner behind a notorious fake news website.

William Ramatseba of Mzansistories.com and his sister Gracy Rams posted links to fabricated articles using social media.

The traffic generated by these stories generated revenue through adverts placed on the website.

News24 reports its investigation tracked Ramatseba’s digital fingerprints across 15 different websites and five social media platforms, eventually identifying him as an office administrator at Unisa.

Law firm Shepstone & Wylie’s Verli Oosthuizen says there can be serious implications for creating websites that post fake news stories.

“What they are doing is misrepresenting facts and that could be a fraudulent activity, crimen injuria where they’ve insulted someone’s dignity on a website, they could be sued for defamation.”

Oosthuizen says people should be careful where they are sourcing their news.

“Don’t source all your news from social media shares through other people. Rather look at reputable news sites and look at a wide range of news providers in order to get your news.”

Oosthuizen says fake news is extremely rampant and created by people with nefarious reasons including the purpose of generating money.