This digital card with Standard Digital’s branding and purportedly quoting Alego Usonga Member of Parliament Samuel Atandi is FAKE.

The 25 July 2023-dated card claims that Atandi hit out at National Assembly Minority Leader Opiyo Wandayi for being a “Mr know it all”. Both MPs are members of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

But is the card authentic?

Although the card has the Standard Digital logo, it does not appear on the media houses’ verified Twitter account and Facebook page, where the publication shares such posts.

PesaCheck contacted Anthony Makokha, the audiovisual editor at Standard Group, to verify the card’s authenticity, and he confirmed that the card is not legitimate.

“The message on a social media card dated 25th July 2023 claiming to be from Standard Group about Hon. Opiyo Wandayi and Hon. Samuel Atandi is not true. We urge everyone not to spread unverified news that can potentially cause harm or mislead the public. Let’s be responsible and share only reliable and verified information,” Makokha said.

The legislator also disowned the card and termed it fake news.

PesaCheck has examined a digital card with Standard Digital’s branding and purportedly quoting Alego Usonga Member of Parliament Samuel Atandi and found it to be FAKE.

This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.

By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.

Have you spotted what you think is fake or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.

This fact-check was written by PesaCheck fact-checker Rodgers Omondi and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.

The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editorDoreen Wainainah.

PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visitpesacheck.org.

PesaCheck is an initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with support from Deutsche Welle Akademie, in partnership with a coalition of local African media and other civic watchdog organisations.