FAKE: This e-Citizen Kenya Twitter account is an imposter

e-Citizen Kenya has disowned the account attributed to them and their twitter account is verified.

A Twitter account claiming to belong to e-Citizen Kenya and asking customers to share their mobile phone numbers is FAKE.

e-Citizen is an official digital payment platform that enables Kenyan citizens, residents and visitors to access and pay for government services online. You can access government services such as the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), immigration, as well as registration of land, businesses, marriages and vehicles.

The Twitter account intercepts messages directed at the legitimate e-Citizen Twitter account with a standard response that reads: “Hello kindly share a reachable number via Dm for follow up and assistance.^MN”.

The Twitter account, whose handle is @e_citizen_Kenya, has three followers and claims on its bio to be “the official eCitizen Kenya twitter Feed”.

However, the account has no original tweets and only responds to clients reaching out to the legitimate e-Citizen Twitter account.

The Twitter account was created in October 2022, which is a red flag, as e-Citizen has been in existence since 2014.

Though the Twitter account in question uses the legitimate e-Citizen Kenya logo, it is not an authentic Twitter account. This is because the bona fide e-Citizen Twitter account is verified.

The official e-Citizen Twitter account also has more followers (32,300) than the imposter Twitter account, which has three followers. The genuine account was created in July 2014, much earlier than when the account we are fact-checking was created (October 2022).

The legitimate e-Citizen Twitter account has also tweeted more times (6,648 tweets) than the imposter account (34 tweets). Contrary to the imposter account, the legitimate account has posted a number of original tweets.

Moreover, the authentic Twitter account has flagged the Twitter account we are fact-checking as an imposter.

“DO NOT DEAL WITH THIS HANDLE, THIS IS A PARODY @e_citizen_Kenya ARE CONMEN, THEY ARE THIEVES, BE VERY CAREFUL,” the legitimate e-Citizen Kenya Twitter account warns.

PesaCheck has looked into a Twitter account claiming to belong to e-Citizen Kenya and asking customers to share their mobile phone numbers and finds it to be FAKE.

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 Naomi Wanjiku and edited by PesaCheck senior copy editor Cédrick Irakoze and acting chief copy editor Francis Mwaniki.

The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck managing editor Doreen Wainainah.