Unisa probes ‘fake news’ employee
The University of South Africa
(Unisa) is investigating the allegations that an employee created a series of
fake news websites.
News24 revealed that the employee was behind the set-up of more than 10 fake news sites and that he was making money off them through adverts.
The news outlet reported that 29-year-old Mahlatse Ramatseba was the alleged creator of numerous fake-news distributors, including mzansistories.com, mzansinewsonline.com, allnews1.com, dailyreport.co.za and others.
Ramatseba’s sites published a number of fake news stories, the most recent claiming that former home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba had filmed a sex tape for his underage girlfriend.
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Mzansistories has also published articles about the Dros rapist, claiming that the accused was black.
Unisa spokesperson Martin Ramotshela says an internal audit is being done to check whether the employee violated any of its rules of conduct or used any of the institute's facilities to create the websites.
"And once our investigation have been carried out and we find that there has been misconduct on the part of the employee we will then take appropriate action."
He says Ramatseba has not been suspended and will be reporting for duty.
"The decision to suspend or not to suspend him will be based on the preliminary investigation that we will be doing as a university. If the facts warrant a suspension we will absolutely suspend."