Ugandan social media blogger and YouTube vlogger commonly known as Lumbuye caused confusion on the Uganda social media space when he released a video alleging that the President of Uganda, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni had passed on and plans had been put in place to replace him. The video garnered a significant viewing and solicited comments and views on the subject from the audience who praised him for his insights in the issue.
The goal of the likes of Lumbuye is to create hysteria among the audience and drive their thinking into committing irrational acts in response which may include posting similarly outrageous claims on the same subject to others like we saw with the Kabaka of Buganda.
President Museveni later appeared that day at a ceremony with Kenya Vice President Ruto for a ground breaking ceremony for a vaccine factory for covid19.
Clearly his statements have been proven to be wrong time and time again but his viewership still remains resilient. This clearly shows that the audience for his lies and conspiracies goes beyond reason and understanding.
The fake news merchants such as lumbuye clearly have a cult like audience of fake news consumers who are using the hysteria created by these stories to cause social anarchy.
False announcing of people dead is unAfrican and considered taboo in almost all societies.
More and more disciples are springing up with more fake news of the death of other personalities. This also exposes the mind-set of this section of the fake news social media. The ones that are not naive are using this to deliberately derail others.
Social media companies such as YouTube and Facebook should also take concern over these misleading stories like they have done for users publishing fake news about covid19.
Security services also need to make interventions to intercept these misleading conspiracies. Some users are naive and may not know better especially when the relevant authorities do not rebut the lies in time.
Politicians such as Bobi Wine who are direct beneficiaries of these fake news stories also need to be made aware of the dangers of this double edged sword that is fake news conspiracies. They have used such people to get political traction but have no control of who these mobs will attack next.
Whereas they attack the person of the President today, they will be quick to turn their guns on who ever they feel is not with them until something is done about them.