Tag: Fact checking

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.   Comments to news on the most read portals in Serbia: The penetration of pro-Russian narratives   Comments on the most visited sites in Serbia show the penetration of pro-Russian narratives into Serbian public opinion. News...

A heart touching emotional scene clip claiming that Ukrainian soldiers bidding farewell to loved ones before leaving for war, has gone viral even in the social media of our country. However, Faktoje managed to verify that such scenes are part of a 2017 Ukrainian film and have nothing to do with the current Russia-Ukraine conflict. ————————————– An emotional video of soldiers...

Bombings and attacks consequences in Ukraine resulting in people lives and civilian objects have been officially denied by Russia. This came into being after the destruction of the Albanian Consulate in Kharkiv for which the Albanian Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs blamed Russia. Russia accused the Albanian MEFA of disseminating disinforming news when Putin is expected to decree...

For more than two decades, Kosovo has been a contentious issue between the West and Russia. During the 1990s, Russia openly supported Serbia despite the fact that the Serbian state had launched and waged a number of wars in the Balkans, including the last war in Kosovo. NATO military humanitarian intervention in Serbia and Montenegro in 1999 was the biggest...

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, as expected, is the topic that has caused the most media attention in the past few weeks. The tabloid media in Serbia are no exception, in which the course of the war, since its beginning, on February 24, 2022, has been regularly broadcast on the front pages. What sets them apart from the leading media...

Russia officially launched an armed attack on Ukraine early Thursday morning. However, the true war has been flagged earlier by Russian misinforming statements and reports fuelling the fire, as assessed by experts, having destabilizing purposes.  Faktoje analysed the statement of the Russian Chief Diplomat Lavrov made on 18 February that war mercenaries from Albania, NMR, Bosnia and Herzegovina were...

The NGO MOST recently published a study dedicated to the fight against false news and narratives. The study “Disinformation and information distortion in North Macedonia December 2021” focuses on the dominant narratives in 2020, with a special focus on articles published in the period from January 1 to May 10. A total of 2,658 articles from 211 portals and...

When German politician Christian Schmidt took over as High Representative of the international community in Bosnia and Herzegovina in August 2021, a debate began in BiH and countries in the region on the legality and legitimacy of his appointment. The Republic of Srpska (RS) officials claim that Schmidt was illegally elected and refuse to recognize him as High Representative. Russia and China express the same view. In addition to...

The conspiracy theory about the alleged murder of the German chemist Andreas Noack attracted a lot of attention on social networks. Noack is said to have been killed for making his “discovery” of graphene hydroxide in Covid-19 vaccines public. He was reportedly killed by German police, while others say the circumstances have not yet been determined. On November 23, 2021, Andreas...

The complex conspiracy theory about the alleged murder of the German chemist Andreas Noack due to his alleged discovery related to graphene in vaccines is viral on social networks and some websites. According to “conspiracy” allegations, Noack reportedly found that Covid-19 vaccines contain “graphene hydroxide particles”, which he described as “nano-sized razors”. On November 23, 2021, Andreas Noack posted on his Telegram...

The Anti-Disinformation Network for the Balkans (ADN-Balkans) issued a statement of support for the Croatian fact-checking outlet Faktograf.hr whose staff had been subject to death threats, while their website has suffered massive cyber-attack hampering its basic functionality. This latest wave of attacks against the fact-checkers, that started on December 10, expands the continuous smear campaign aimed at defaming both the...

We have seen that disinformation, misinformation and manipulations in the media can exert heavy influence on people's lives. The COVID-19 infodemic lead to conspiracy theories that are creating mistrust toward institutions. Th disinformation, misinformation and the manipulations can undermine even the most important aspects of our pluralistic societies. What can be done against this without limiting the right to...

Facebook presented new ways to inform people that they are interacting with content that’s been rated by a fact-checker as disinformation and it is taking stronger action against people who repeatedly share misinformation on Facebook. The company stated that it is making sure fewer people see misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines, climate change, elections or other topics. "We want to...

World Press Freedom Day is celebrated today, for the 28th time. The Metamorphosis Foundation congratulates all journalists, media workers and all the others who fight for the freedom of expression and for human rights. The free and professional media have a key role in securing knowledge and voice for the citizens, uncovering corruption and developing a culture of criticism where...

The fact-checking is just a small part of the fight against disinformation, which is a hard and arduous undertaking in this digital age, amidst the rising impact of social networking on our lives. This is the conclusion of the panel discussion on the occasion of the 2nd of April – The International Fact-Checking Day, which was organized by the...

We are posting the Truthmeter's refutation in its entirety: Truthmeter.mk refutes the claims of Janko Bachev, the president of the political party "Edinstvena Makedonija"'s (One Macedonia), who in the past several days and weeks has been persistently disinforming the general public, stating that he was exposed to „strong pressure and blockades“ by Truthmeter.mk, adding that he also said that...

The Administrative Court of Albania decided that the 8 highest state institutions, namely the Presidency, the Parliament of Albania, and several ministries, would provide Faktoje, the fact-checking website in Albania, with information and invoices about the official trips that heads of institutions took abroad. Decisions were made fairly quickly, despite the challenges caused by the pandemic across the system,...

Today is 10 December, the International Human Rights Day. On this day in 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the first global document to articulate human rights and bring them to the forefront globally, as well as one of the greatest achievements of the United Nations. Moreover, the celebration of...

Today, Facebook announced that together with the Metamorphosis Foundation and Truthmeter, will launch a third-party fact-checking program in North Macedonia. Besides our country, Facebook is launching this program in other countries in the region: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia, while the existing program in Croatia will be expanded. As part of Facebook’s fight against misinformation, the company is collaborating...

Theodoros Daniilidis is the founder, and Thanos Sitistas is the editor of “Ellinika Hoaxes”, the most famous website in Greece that debunks disinformation and fake news. It has been doing that in the past six years, since 2013. In the interview for “Meta.mk”, Daniilidis and Sitistas say that the Greeks are pretty prone to believe fake news, but also...