Zimbabwe’s popular H-Metro tabloid newspaper H-Metro has two Facebook Pages. The bad news (for H-Metro) is that the most popular one, and the most recently updated one at that, is the fake one. The fake H-Metro Facebook Page has 11,379 likes, while the real one has just 3,854 likes.
HMetro posted an update on its website recently alerting users an imposter page was pretending to be the real H-Metro:
To all our readers and Facebook fans, please be advised that there is a FAKE H-Metro Facebook Page doing rounds on the internet imitating the REAL H-Metro page.
Please be advised that we do not have individuals administering another page on our behalf neither do we have an input on it.
This FAKE page does not carry the views and/or opinions of H-Metro.
Please, be warned that if people’s rights are violated in anyway H-Metro will not be held accountable.
To visit the official Facebook Page login into www.facebook.com/HMetrozim
Here’s the fake one facebook.com/pages/H-Metro-Real-Life-Real-Drama/259352957428224
The most likely situation here is that the official H-Metro came to the party a little late. They have bureaucratic old media red tape to deal with before they take any radical steps like having some social media presence. And when consensus was finally reached at Zimpapers, someone had already seized the opportunity to use the controversial crowd pulling brand. And use it they did!
It’s possible for HMetro to have the fake one pulled down if they contact Facebook of course but they shouldn’t expect the process to be easy. An easier route would be trying to convince the administrators of the fake page to hand it over. Or better still, they could outsource the social media side of the tabloid to them; these imposters clearly have a better understanding of social media. Maybe the those Twitter and YouTube icons on the H-Metro website could become more than just place holders.
That aside, the HMetro website has to be one of the most unstable websites out there. It’s down so often we almost don’t see the need to check when someone complains about it being down. Take this weekend for example, the website was down the whole weekend with the now usual “This site has been suspended” message. The site was restored this morning.
The HMetro website itself recently went through a design makeover.
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11 comments
FYI After reading this article I actually had a tougher time trying to access the official H-Metro FB page it kept showing errors rather than the so called “Fake” one which to me is just ridiculous because the content from both pages is almost the same save for winning movie tickets on the alleged “official”, this must be an inside job…
Hahahaha, i also tried, how is that for a kick!
why should more than 50% of the information be identical, is you say the fake was the first on it means the official one is a duplicate of the fake one. I think H-metro owned the first page and after realizing they had made enough enemies they decide to dump it.
On the other hand i think H Metro should just negotiate to buy the fake one and forget about the real one.
Hanzi ”
Please, be warned that if people’s rights are violated in anyway H-Metro will not be held accountable.”
The irony yacho futi! Who is know for violating people’s privacy rights muHarare muno nhai? tibvirei apa Hmetro
The site is now unavailable. Wow, your words worked a charm!
i had difficulties accessing the real facebook H-Metro, saka zvonzi kudii manje – tongobaya ku fake one ndiko kunospaka !
They should just give the guy with the fake page a job as he knows how to do it better than the guys they are paying to work on the official page.
Unfortunately by the time these guys realise what is happening someone clever would have made some good money from thier brand. Will be launching a fake (working) H-metro android and ios app soon… better than waiting for these loosers to do it. Next Zanu Congress does not have this on the agenda…
Internet fraud. I bet the one who made the fake fan page generated many money from it. Good to hear the fake one is now being taken care of.
ahuite.ahuite ndipo panobaya.
pakaipa mhen ko totii asi it*s nce 2 be her?