Over the last few months, a number of Twitter accounts have been impersonating and posting tweets as Charlene Ruto, the daughter of President William Ruto. This archived tweet shows a screenshot with some of the tweets from one of the imposter accounts.
Background
Over the election period, Twitter had several fake accounts impersonating prominent Kenyans, including Royal Media Services Founder S.K Macharia,as debunked here, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission assistant Chairperson Juliana Cherera –debunked here, as well as Chief Justice Martha Koome –debunked here.
Many of these accounts come with a deluge of misinformation, as in the case of the account purporting to belong to President Ruto’s daughter Charlene Ruto.
Verification
After attempts by an account claiming to belong to Charlene Ruto to fleece Kenyans by demanding money to get them jobs, the president’s daughter warned Kenyans over the impostor accounts as reported here and on this archived Kenyans.co.ke tweet. One of the culprit accounts, which garnered over 140,000 followers, has since been suspended.
All social media accounts using my name to target job seekers are fake. – Charlene Ruto pic.twitter.com/OpEBEX553C
— Kenyans.co.ke (@Kenyans) October 19, 2022
Although unverified by the Twitter badge, the correct account belonging to Charlene Ruto is @charlruto. Piga Firimbi reached out to Dennis Itumbi, a source close to Charlene Ruto, who confirmed that this is the only true Twitter account of Charlene.
Verdict
Twitter accounts purporting to belong to President Ruto’s daughter are FAKE.
This fact-check was produced by Africa Uncensored with support from Code for Africa’s PesaCheck, African Fact Checking Alliance network and the United Nations Development Programme.
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