The continuing threat of fake news proliferation is troubling Cameroonian businesses, with specific impact on the telecoms sectors.

State-run Cameroon Telecommunications (Camtel) said last month that it has recurrently been targeted in fake news circulating on social networks, following a fraudulent job advert which was used to target victims online.

Eric Benjamin Lamere, Camtel’s head of Institutional and Digital Communication, said fake news related to its services, commercial offers and job openings are designed to mislead and confuse Camtel users, thereby compromising the telco’s corporate reputation.

“We strongly condemn these malicious acts, which not only mislead the public but also damage the relationship of trust we have built with our customers and partners,” Lamere said.

He called on users to be vigilant and rely only on information published on the company’s official digital platforms.

Other mobile telephony companies including MTN Cameroon, Orange Cameroun and Nexttel have also had to grapple with the growing problem of fake news.

In one instance, MTN had to fight a fake news campaign purporting that the telco would shut down the internet for a few days before, during and after the last presidential elections in the country.

Cameroon’s National Agency for Information and Communication Technologies (ANTIC) says fake news and hate speech are among the top social media abuses it is working to circumvent.

The government has previously asked Facebook for help with tackling fake news. At the time, the American tech company was facing scathing criticism for allowing fake news to thrive on its platforms.

Martin Elonge, director of Innovation Research and Development at Cameroon’s Mountain Hub, told ITWeb Africa that fake news is especially widespread in the digital space and is taking a huge toll on the tech and telecoms sectors.

According to Elonge, some people are experimenting with propagating falsehood in the digital space. Their reasons vary from profit motive to just having fun.

“The spread of misleading information about businesses is damaging to business reputation. This could manifest in loss of clients or customers and even existing or future partnerships for a business; irrespective of whether they are actively present online. And of course, this would directly translate to a fall in revenue for that business,” said Elonge.