Fake News: Malema Did NOT Say Whites Should Not Be Allowed in Shopping Malls

Fact Check

  • by: Maarten Schenk
Fake News: Malema Did NOT Say Whites Should Not Be Allowed in Shopping  Malls

Did South African politician Julius Malema say white people should not be allowed in shopping malls? No, that's not true: the story was published by a satire website but the satire disclaimer of the site is hidden away on a different page so it wasn't immediately obvious to readers of the story that the entire thing was made up. It is not real.

The story originated from an article published by News Updates South Africa on August 21, 2018 titled "'Whites should not be allowed in Shopping Malls' , Malema - News Updates South Africa" (archived here) which opened:

A resident from Centurion sent a frantic warning to fellow residents in Centurion warning them about EFF thugs chasing white shoppers away from a shopping mall. Apparently white privilege is the reason why white people are not allowed to visit a shopping mall.

Users on social media would only see this title, description and thumbnail, with no hint the story was satirical in nature:

'Whites should not be allowed in Shopping Malls' , Malema - News Updates South Africa

A resident from Centurion sent a frantic warning to fellow residents in Centurion warning them about EFF thugs chasing white shoppers away from a shopping mall. Apparently white privilege is the reason why white people are not allowed to visit a shopping mall.

However the site comes with an "About Us" page that says:

News Updates South Africa is South Africa's number 1 news satire website.

This indicates the story is not true. No other reputable news sources in South Africa reported on the quote either.

We wrote about newsupdatessa.site before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

Want to inform others about the accuracy of this story?

See who is sharing it (it might even be your friends...) and leave the link in the comments.:


  Maarten Schenk

Lead Stories co-founder Maarten Schenk is our resident expert on fake news and hoax websites. He likes to go beyond just debunking trending fake news stories and is endlessly fascinated by the dazzling variety of psychological and technical tricks used by the people and networks who intentionally spread made-up things on the internet.  He can often be found at conferences and events about fake news, disinformation and fact checking when he is not in his office in Belgium monitoring and tracking the latest fake article to go viral.

Read more about or contact Maarten Schenk

About Us

International Fact-Checking Organization Meta Third-Party Fact Checker

Lead Stories is a fact checking website that is always looking for the latest false, misleading, deceptive or inaccurate stories, videos or images going viral on the internet.
Spotted something? Let us know!.

Lead Stories is a:


@leadstories

Subscribe to our newsletter

* indicates required

Please select all the ways you would like to hear from Lead Stories LLC:

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. For information about our privacy practices, please visit our website.

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By clicking below to subscribe, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp's privacy practices here.

Most Read

Most Recent

Share your opinion