Fact Check: No, President Mnangagwa and Strive Masiyiwa have not launched cryptocurrency project

Claim: A sponsored article circulating on Facebook claims President Emmerson Mnangagwa and businessman, Strive Masiyiwa have partnered to launch the CryptoExplodeAI project to help Zimbabweans earn money and also improve the country’s economy.

Is this true or false?
Verdict: False

The above article has been dismissed as imposter content by Alpha Media Holdings (AMH) which publishes the Zimbabwean Independent. In addition, the URL in the article does not link back to the news outlet’s website which is suspicious.

The article is linked to a cloned Zimbabwe Independent website which at first glance has the interface of the newspaper’s digital platform but a closer look shows that the tabs on the site lead to a form which requests users’ private information to activate CryptoExplodeAI.

A similar attempt to mislead the public was flagged in Ghana after another article claimed businessman Ibrahim Mahama had also launched the crypto platform in the West African country.

ZimFact urges online users to guard against scammers who abuse the names of prominent personalities to entice the public to buy into their scams.

How to verify online content and social media accounts

Find out who is posting on the platform.
If it purports to be a government page or news outlet find out if it is the official account.
Check if the URL in the post works and if it is linked to an official website.
Inspect the timeline to investigate whether the user has a track record of posting factual and reliable information.
When the post is sponsored, ask yourself why someone would want it to be seen by many people.
Try to understand the context within which a post was made.
Verify date & time stamp.
Check out who is following the page
Find out if the page was setup as a parody account to share jokes.
Find out what other pages or media platforms say about the issues raised in the post.
Lookout for obvious errors in the post.
In some cases, one can get a clue in the comments section.