Wrote: Fatbardh Dema
A YouTube video title claims a secret meeting between Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and US President-elect Donald Trump.
"Trump takes over the keys to Kosovo/Kurti secret meeting with TRUMP", is the title of a video published on the channel "NTV Television” on YouTube on January 17.
What is the truth?
The title of this video does not relate to its content. The cover of the video features a photo of Prime Minister Albin Kurti, US President-elect Donald Trump, and Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić. The photos are accompanied by the caption "US ENDING THE REGION".
While if you click on the video, an analyst speaks there and does not mention in any case the issue alleged in the title. The video is an interview with analyst Selami Shkodra who initially talks about the election campaign, without mentioning the name of Prime Minister Kurti in any case. In the interview he also spoke about the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue. He did not speak in this video about the Trump administration or mention the "secret Kurti-Trump meeting".
In the video, two titles have been continuously circulated: “ALARM, KOSOVO IN DANGER” and “COLD WAR IN THE BALKANS”. At the end, he was also asked about “the Serbia-Israel arms deal and how much Kosovo may feel endangered”.
The full answer to this question:
"I do not think that Kosovo should feel threatened, because the state of Israel is one of the countries that has recognized the Republic of Kosovo and is part of the hemisphere of the bloc, where Kosovo also belongs. The United States of America leads this bloc. And I believe that Kosovo will have the opportunity to increase its military capacities through contractual relations in the field of defense that it already has with several countries, such as the USA, Britain, the Republic of Turkey. And just yesterday we had good news from Washington where the Minister of Defense announced that we have a green light from the United States of America to start building a fleet of military helicopters precisely from the products of the United States of America. Therefore, I think that we should do our job, our own. We are not part of the arms race and we should not be. Serbia is promoting the arms race in the region, but the real arms race in the region is between Serbia and the Republic of Croatia."
For more, hibrid.info used the online search engine "Google" by typing "Kurti meets Trump"s", but the results did not find any credible source of information that would confirm the claim given in the video title.
The video published so far has received more than 2100 views.
The "NTV Television" channel on YouTube has the domain "ntv.al", which is an information portal in the Albanian language.
Analyze:
The video titled "Trump takes control of Kosovo/Kurti secret meeting with TRUMP", published on the "NTV Television" channel on YouTube, is unrelated to the content.
In the video, an analyst talks about the election campaign in Kosovo, the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, and finally about armament issues. At no point does he mention Kosovo's Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, or US President-elect Donald Trump.
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this content as "Disinformation" and "Clickbait".
Reasoning:
"Disinformation" is defined as information content that contains a "mix" of inaccurate sources or even half-truthful attributes, and that is created and/or distributed with the deliberate intention of causing harm. The motive behind the producers/distributors of disinformation content lies in achieving a political, financial, psychological or social goal.
The “Clickbait” rating is given to texts whose titles have no basis in the content of the following text. Such texts and articles aim to attract the attention of the reader or even the consumer with a sensational title by promising content that does not actually exist and are created mainly out of financial interest, that is, due to increased readability. So, this type of text is intended only to click, which can be converted into a profit for the content producer.