Fake news website news.states-tv.com posted a story titled: "VISA-FREE: European Parliament votes to grant visa-free travel for South Africans". The story implies that South African citizens can now travel visa free to the European Union after a vote from the European Parliament:
The European Parliament has voted to grant visa-free travel for South Africans within the EU.
The vote urges the revocation of visa requirements for South Africans, meaning South Africans would be able to travel across all member states without visas after the European Commission implements a "delegated act" in April to bring the change into effect.
This comes after the parliament voted to end visa-free travels for Americans as the United States has failed to grant all member countries of the EU visa-free travels to the States.
However the website of the European Parliament makes no mention of such vote taking place and the story is not true. Questions have been asked in the parliament about potentially starting negotiations on visa-free travel but it is definitely not a done deal. According to Wikipedia the countries in grey still require South-African travelers to obtain visa before going there.
By TristanPhoenix - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
The story follows a similar pattern of other visa-free travel hoaxes which have been popping up all over the internet, variously promising visa free travel to Europe or the United States from all kinds of different countries or regions.
Meanwhile the false information is being shared around widely as you can see in the Trendolizer graph at the end of this article. If you notice anyone spreading the rumor around you can help by pointing them to this article here because nobody likes being arrested at the border for believing fake news.
