Tag: Fact checking

While disinformation campaigns flood Central and Eastern Europe, civil society organizations are at the forefront of initiatives to face this challenge. Meta.mk spoke to Ina Danila, Project Manager at Funky Citizens, a Romanian organization working on fact-checking and disinformation resilience, about the current situation in Romania within the regional context. Disinformation is a worldwide threat to democratic societies. North Macedonia...

The European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN) presented its Governance Body and newly-written Code of professional standards at a public event in Brussels on November 16 attended by representatives of EU institutions, digital media platforms and civil society. Over the past year, the EFCSN project has brought together nearly 50 fact-checking organisations from across Europe to write a Code of professional standards that organisations will...

A photo of several people posing at a gay parade accompanies the post. In the photo, there is a person with Zelensky’s face. Truthmeter looked up the same photo through the Tin Aye search engine and found it was taken in 2006, not 1999 as claimed in the post. Zelensky is not in the original photo, writes Truthmeter.mk. Under the...

The Kosovo Police (KP) on July 7, implementing the decision of the Basic Court in Ferizaj, raided several locations in the municipality of Shtërpcë. According to the prosecutor of the case, the purpose of this KP action was to control some locations where illegal Serbian structures operate in Kosovo. During this action in the facilities of the illegal municipality of...

On June 21, Kosovo and Serbia finalized the roadmap for the implementation of energy agreements in the four municipalities of northern Kosovo: North Mitrovica, Leposaviq, Zveçan and Zubin Potok. The roadmap is based on the 2013 agreement, which was reached in Brussels as part of Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, mediated by the EU. The same agreement was confirmed in 2015. However, for nine years the...

Parallel to the continuation of war in Ukraine, the Russian Federation is aggressively engaging in disseminating false information, including in the region and Kosovo. Recently, the Ministry of Interior of Russia has published a list, where it is claimed that over 7,000 mercenaries from third countries have been engaged in Ukraine. According to this ministry, 156 of them are...

Albania’s exports to China have marked in increase in 2022 by 67%. INSTAT official data, after being processed by Faktoje, showed China of “taking” ores, chromium, and copper concentrates from our country. Increase of export figures was recently announced even by the Chinese Ambassador to Albania, Mr. Zhou Ding thus describing it a friendship indicator between the countries. “In the...

In its articles, the web portal Webtribune often conveys information from a Chinese blog where content can be published by anyone, thus presenting the blog as a credible media source. Readers reported several articles on Webtribune, which are based on using the same disinformation strategy of manipulative presentation of certain sources as official and credible, even though they are not....

In their headlines, some web portals manipulatively presented the statement of a Russian deputy as an official decision of Russia. On May 15, 2022, Webtribune published an article with the title claiming that “Russia has decided” to return NATO to its borders from 1997: RUSSIA HAS DECIDED, AND THERE IS NO WAY BACK: We will return NATO to its borders from 1997 with...

The potential use of nuclear weapons is often mentioned in the context of the war in Ukraine. As a rule, reporting on this topic is followed by sensationalist and manipulative headlines that try to attract clicks. Early in the morning on February 24, 2022, the Russian army attacked several cities in Ukraine, and since that moment, the media has been intensively reporting...

As part of the program Regional Initiative to Combat Disinformation, we present you a new monthly analysis of fake news and disinformation narratives. All president’s people: Russian commentators in Serbian media   Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, part of the media in the Serbian language has started to transmit statements and texts of Russian military and political analysts, with...

The initiative of the three countries of the Western Balkans, Serbia, Albania and Northern Macedonia, known as the "Open Balkans" continues to be one of the most controversial topics in Kosovo and the region. The last meeting of this initiative, which was organized in Ohrid, Northern Macedonia, on June 8, in addition to member states, in the capacity of observers...

Even three months after Russia's aggression on Ukraine, misinformation statements by Russian and Serbian officials on Kosovo have continued. The latest one came from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who in an interview with "Sputnik" in Russia and broadcast by Serbian media has denied the Recak massacre in Kosovo. During the interview, Lavrov was quoted as saying that it had been "discovered"...

Russia and Ukraine remains the two main oil importers to the country, despite the war between them. Following alarms raised by importers as the country is in danger of not having oil in the market, INSTAT data processed by Faktoje showed that in the first 4 months of this year, total oil imports decreased by only 2%. Furthermore, the...

The main actors in the process of counteracting the effects of the disinformation should be the institutions that are tasked with the creation of media policies, but also the media outlets and the journalists. Still, a systematic approach, with participation of several other factors is essential, said researcher Gjorgji Mitrevski at "The Situations and Challenges Related to the Influence...

Long before the conflict in Ukraine escalated into a full-scale war by Russia, tensions in the Western Balkans were present, as was Russia's interest in the Western Balkans remaining a troubled area within Europe and being used as a threat, whenever deemed useful to its interests. Not more than 6 years ago, the involvement of the Russian secret service in a...

Serb officials continue to label incidents/thefts in Serb community areas as ethnically-based, claiming they are in sync with statements of Kosovo politicians, aimed at expelling Serbs from Kosovo. The so-called Office for Kosovo in the Government of Serbia published a press release on May 16, claiming that there were new attacks on Serbs, where two shops in the village of Prekovc...

From 1st May to 30rd September, all Russians coming to Albania for tourism purposes do not need a visa. The government decided to facilitate the procedures for tourist season when Russia is applying a strict visa regime for Albania. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Albania to ban Russian tourists, however the Albanian government does not intend to do so....

Before, during, and after the parliamentary/presidential elections held in Serbia on April 3, online websites without Impressum continued to spread misinformation related to security in Kosovo, guaranteed by the NATO Mission. One of these websites published an article saying that the situation is alarming and that Kosovo should be careful, as the Serbian army can occupy it in a...

As part of the program Regional Initiative to Combat Disinformation, it is our great pleasure to present you the first analyses of fake news and disinformation narratives. "Economic Collapse of the West": Media Narratives in Serbia about the consequences of the war in Ukraine During April 2022, most of the tabloid media in Serbia reported in a dramatic way on the...