{"id":132209,"date":"2016-08-02T09:33:40","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T07:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=132209"},"modified":"2016-08-02T11:35:53","modified_gmt":"2016-08-02T09:35:53","slug":"80000-ballot-papers-pre-marked-for-the-anc-story-a-hoax-saps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/132209\/80000-ballot-papers-pre-marked-for-the-anc-story-a-hoax-saps\/","title":{"rendered":"‘80,000 ballot papers pre-marked for the ANC’ story a hoax: SAPS"},"content":{"rendered":"

A hoax news report claiming that two people were arrested in Tembisa for being in possession of over 80,000 ballot papers pre-marked in favour of the ANC has been dismissed by the SAPS.<\/p>\n

The story, which was shared thousands of times on Facebook and posted by gossip news site, Gossip Mill Mzansi, cited an unnamed police officer as a source of the news, and little else.<\/p>\n

Colonel Amelia Dreyer of the South African Police Service confirmed to BusinessTech that the story is a hoax.<\/p>\n

“This seems to be one of the many hoax news websites that are mushrooming on the internet. There is no verified source to the story,” Dreyer said.<\/p>\n

\"Fake<\/a>

The hoax report<\/p><\/div>\n

Hoax stories on the internet are nothing new, yet despite obvious signs to the contrary, get shared on social media as truth. An example of this phenomenon can be seen in full practice every April 1st<\/a>.<\/p>\n

HowStuffWorks has a useful online guide<\/a><\/strong> on how to spot fake news stories on the Internet.<\/p>\n

More on fake news and hoaxes<\/h3>\n

Eskom blackout warning hoax<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

6 ways to sniff out fake viral news online<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

How to spot fake photos online<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A report claiming that 80,000 ballot papers pre-marked in favour of the ANC were found in Thembisa has been confirmed to be a hoax.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":93132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-132209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132209"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":132241,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132209\/revisions\/132241"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}