{"id":296,"date":"2026-01-03T12:48:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T12:48:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/296\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T12:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T12:48:09","slug":"uganda-debunks-fake-election-service-shutdown-notice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/296\/","title":{"rendered":"Uganda Debunks Fake Election Service Shutdown Notice"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has officially dismissed a viral social media notice claiming that mobile money services and bank withdrawals would be restricted ahead of the 2026 General Elections.<\/p>\n

The counterfeit notice, which began circulating on Saturday morning, January 3, 2026, falsely bore UCC branding and urged citizens to \u201cwithdraw all savings\u201d before a supposed election-related digital blackout. It claimed that both mobile money platforms and internet gateways would be deactivated next week to \u201cpreserve national security.\u201d<\/p>\n

Official Response<\/p>\n

In a statement posted on its verified social media channels, the UCC urged the public to ignore the fake notice.<\/p>\n

\u201d The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) alerts the public that a circulating notice is fake and not issued by the Commission. UCC only distributes official updates via verified channels.\u201d<\/p>\n

It added: \u201cThe public should ignore the fake notice and consult only official UCC channels for accurate updates.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incident comes as the Electoral Commission (EC) and security agencies intensify efforts to combat election-related disinformation.<\/p>\n

On December 31, 2025, EC Chairperson Justice Simon Byabakama warned that the misuse of artificial intelligence and social media could undermine the integrity of the polls.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Fake Notice<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) has officially dismissed a viral social media notice claiming that mobile money services…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[407,408,409,187,188,190,191,153,410],"class_list":{"0":"post-296","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uganda","8":"tag-2026-elections","9":"tag-fake-notice","10":"tag-service-shutdown","11":"tag-softpower","12":"tag-softpower-news","13":"tag-top-uganda-news","14":"tag-ucc","15":"tag-uganda","16":"tag-uganda-communications-commission"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}