The main topics that have dominated this month are various tragic cases (deaths, murders) and the Israel-Hamas conflict. The main reason was that various publishers used events of this type from different countries, aiming, by not specifying the location through the title, to present them as events related to Kosovo or Albanian-speaking regions. Meanwhile, despite the fact that the Israel-Hamas conflict is ongoing, misinformation content related to the event has suffered in Albanian-language content, causing this topic to be reduced to the misinformation ecosystem.
The continuation of the Israel-Hamas conflict that began on October 7, as well as misinformation regarding the arming of the KSF, has led to misinformation in the field of security prevailing during this month, followed by a black chronicle with articles about tragic cases that did not state in the headline that they were not related to Kosovo.
"Clickbait" articles dominated the misinformation rating categories during October, followed by disinformation and fake news.
In November, the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) was the institution that was most discussed and included in misinformation, being linked to its armament with helicopters, airplanes, and tanks.
US President Joe Biden, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi are the most talked about figures in the misinformation published in November.
These data came from monitoring report which presents the state of misinformation for the month of November 2023 in content related to Kosovo, based on data provided by the fact-checking platform – hibrid.info. The report is designed by the fact-checking platform hibrid.info, part of the Kosovar NGO “Action for Democratic Society” (ADS) and supported by the American foundation “National Endowment for Democracy” (NED) within the framework of the project “Promoting Objective Journalism and Combating Disinformation”.
During November 2023, various media and publishers published the most “clickbait” articles with 32%, followed by disinformation with 26% and fake news with 17%, while deceptive content occupies the fourth place with 11%. The majority of “clickbait” content was created and published in the field of black chronicle with 23% and social with 3%, and all were published in real media. Meanwhile, disinformation was published by publishers on social media, dubious portals and real media in Albanian, where the vast majority of them are from the field of security, politics and social. Almost all fake news was published on social media, most of them in the field of security and black chronicle. All deceptive content was published by pages and accounts on social media related to social and political topics. So, at a time when there is no major development in Kosovo, then "clickbait" articles return as a form of informational distortion with the idea of encouraging clicks, which is practiced by information portals. Meanwhile, disinformation continues to be published on social media, including old topics and discussions by intervening in them (changes in titles and content.
Various tragic cases including deaths, murders, accidents, and the Israel-Hamas conflict were the two main topics of misinformation during this month. Articles within the tragic cases of misinformation have dealt with deaths, murders, accidents, and disasters in various circumstances and for which the location of the incident is not disclosed in their titles with the aim of encouraging clicks from readers, and which have mainly been assessed as “clickbait” and have been published on information portals. Whereas, regarding the Israel-Hamas conflict, social media has published mainly disinformation and fake news from the security and social fields, where the vast majority included images and photographs claiming to present the situation from this conflict. Despite the fact that the Israel-Hamas conflict is ongoing, the misinformation content published by pages and accounts on social media related to it has been reduced. This paves the way for tragic topics to dominate the misinformation ecosystem in Kosovo.
Despite the fact that security, black chronicle and social fields are not related to each other, these three fields constitute the vast majority (80%) of the misinformation content published for the month of November 2023. Most of the misinformation content from the security field was assessed as disinformation (14%) and fake news (9%) and was published on social media. Meanwhile, the misinformation content from the black chronicle was mainly published in real media, and most of it was assessed as "clickbait". Content related to the arming of the KSF and the Israel-Hamas conflict has caused security to prevail during this month, while "clickbait" articles have been published from the black chronicle field, i.e. about various tragic cases. The vast majority of misinformation from the social field was also published on social media, where fraud, unverified content and misinformation prevailed in terms of categories. Other areas of misinformation include politics (12%), sports (5%), culture (2%) and health (1%).
Even during November 2023, misinformation published on social media has prevailed with 52%, followed by real media (38%) and dubious portals with 10%. In November, based on the monitoring sample, 97% of misinformation content was published by media and social media pages in Albanian, while 3% in Serbian-language media. The vast majority of misinformation content in Albanian is from the field of security, black chronicle and social, while those in the language were from the field of social and sports. While the majority of misinformation content in Albanian was assessed as "clickbait", disinformation and fake news, those in Serbian were categorized as disinformation and unverified content. Regarding publications by publishers on social media, 54% were published on Facebook, followed by TikTok with 46%.
Joe Biden, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Hashim Thaçi are the three most talked about figures in the misinformation published by Albanian-language publishers. As an institution, the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) was included in the misinformation published during November.
The Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, did not keep the promise made on October 27, that the population census process would begin on the scheduled date (November 1) based on the decision of the Government of Kosovo, a decision that has not been implemented.
The Minister of Internal Affairs, Xhelal Sveçla, has made a half-truthful statement by writing that the average income for these officials this year exceeds 2200 euros, even though, based on the Law on Salaries for Public Officials, none of the positions within the Kosovo Police are paid the amount claimed by Minister Sveçla, and it has also been found that the claimed payment included police officers engaged in the north of the country, due to extended working hours.