FALSE: President Ruto hasn’t lost over 3.6 million followers on X
Ruto had 6.3 million followers on X, as of 24 June 2024.
This Facebook post with a screengrab claiming that Kenyan President William Ruto lost over 3.6 million followers on X (formerly Twitter) in 24 hours is FALSE.
Published on 22 June 2024, the post claimed that Ruto’s followers on X dropped from 6.3 to 2.7 million.
“Yesterday, Kenyans showed their anger by un following President William Ruto on his X page, formally known as Twitter. From 6.3M followers to 2.7M followers within a span of 24 hours.Things are going south (Sic),” the post reads.
The claim was also shared here and here, albeit with a different wording.
The post was shared amid anti-Finance Bill 2024 protests in Kenya, where a section of youth demonstrated against the new proposed tax laws tabled in parliament.
But is the post accurate?
A review of the screengrab established that it is of Ruto’s Facebook page, where the President had 2.7 million followers on 24 June 2024, not on his X account.
PesaCheck examined Ruto’s X account and confirmed that the President had 6.3 million followers as of 24 June 2024, contrary to the claim.
The claim used an image of Ruto’s Facebook page, which has 2.7 million followers, to suggest that his X account, with 6.3 million followers, had lost over 3.6 million followers in a day.
PesaCheck looked into a Facebook post with a screengrab claiming that President Ruto lost over 3.6 million followers on X in a span of 24 hours and found it to be FALSE.
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 Mary Mutisya and chief copy editor Stephen Ndegwa.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editor Doreen 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, visit pesacheck.org.
