Fake News Alert: Zimbabwe Has NOT Scrapped Wearing Of Face Masks

The article can be found on this link: https://zero.pindula.co.zw/namibia-scraps-mandatory-wearing-of-face-masks  

This evening, we were alerted that a fake news story is circulating on WhatsApp with the Pindula branding on it. Someone took the Namibia story and changed everywhere it mentioned Namibia to Zimbabwe. The person even faked the website address to make it look genuine.

Since this story is not on the Pindula web platform, when you click on it, you get a “Not Found” error. It is fake news and this was not published by Pindula.

Here is how you can verify news posted by Pindula on WhatsApp:

1. All the news articles we post on WhatsApp have a web address of the news article on our website. This is meant for verification.
2. When you click on that web address it takes you to our site where you can see the news item in its original form.
3. If the news article does not appear on our website, it means the WhatsApp news item is fake.
4. We have taken extra care to add this verification method because this is not the first time someone has abused our brand to make their fake news look genuine.
5. In the event that you ever doubt something that carries the Pindula Brand, even if written by us, you can always get in touch with one of our group administrators on this number: +263733045671 (Strictly WhatsApp).

Zimbabweans can verify these news articles because our web platform and mobile app (https://zero.pindula.co.zw/download/ ) can be used even if you don’t have any data (Econet only for now).

We are deeply disturbed by this because not only does it abuse our brand, it misleads the people of Zimbabwe into acting against the ongoing COVID-19 regulations. Please spread this message as widely as you can by forwarding it to others so they also know about the fake news.