Facebook removes fake government jobs page

Facebook has removed a page offering fake government jobs.

This comes after SowetanLIVE's sister publication TimesLIVE reported on Wednesday that despite Africa Check blowing the lid on the scam months ago, the page called “Government Jobs Application Page”, continued to post many fake jobs daily and had a following of more than 189,000 users.

“We don’t want Facebook to be used to scam people. This isn’t good for our users and it damages our business. To fight this, we have strict policies to prevent and disrupt scams and fraudulent activity,” a Facebook spokesperson told TimesLIVE on Friday.

“When content violates these rules, and we are made aware, we take swift action against this, which is why we have removed the fake Government Jobs Application Page. We will remove repeat offenders from our service, and encourage people to report suspicious content when they see it.”

In November, Africa Check reported that the page — which shared a number of adverts for jobs in government departments including home affairs, correctional services and the police service — was a scam.

“Facebook transparency records show the page was created in August 2015 and was originally called ‘Government Jobs, Learnership, Internships & Bursaries SA’. Its name has changed a number of times over the years.

“Although the page uses SA’s national coat of arms as a profile picture, it includes no links to any of the government’s official social media pages or websites,” Africa Check reported.

The link directed users to a website called “NEWS95.CO.ZA”.

“There is no real way to apply for a job from here. The site is filled with colourful banners and pop-up ads. It is likely the website owner is earning money from this,” Africa Check said.

TimesLIVE