Several portals in Kosovo have published an article related to Belarus, where the authorities of this country blocked the website of one of the most popular independent media outlets, Nasha Niva, whose offices were raided and its journalists were searched on Thursday.
However, portals such as "botasot.info" and "kosova-sot.info" in publishing this article have used titles such as "Prosecutor closes well-known opposition newspaper and arrests its editor-in-chief" and "Terror for the media: Independent portal blocked, offices raided, editors arrested", without disclosing in which country this event occurred.
Knowing that these portals (botasot.info and kosova-sot.info) are from Kosovo and have the vast majority of readers who speak Albanian, these articles with generalizing titles allow one to understand that the event took place in Kosovo or another Albanian-speaking country.
Excerpt from the text of the article published on the portals "botasot.info" and "kosova-sot.info":
Botasot.info
Belarusian authorities have blocked the website of a newspaper that has been critical of the leader, Alexander Lukashenko.
The newspaper, Nasha Niva, one of Belarus' oldest, covered the protests against Lukashenko last summer and was an important source of information for opposition supporters.
Kosovo-sot.info
Authorities in Belarus blocked the website of one of the country's most popular independent media outlets, Nasha Niva, raided its offices and searched its journalists on Thursday.
The Ministry of Information announced restrictive measures against access to the site on Thursday morning, citing an instruction from the Prosecutor General's Office regarding Article 39 of the Belarusian law on mass media, which Freedom House says does not require judicial process and does not provide for an appeal.
Links to the article published on "botasot.info" and "kosova-sot.info":
Analyze:
These portals, in publishing this article regarding the closure of a newspaper in Belarus, did not indicate in the headlines which country's newspaper it was from.
Knowing that these portals are Kosovar and have Albanian-speaking readers, with these established titles they can make the reader believe that the event is about Kosovo, since such a thing is only learned after clicking on the article.
After fact-checking analysis, hibrid.info assesses these articles as "clickbait".
Reasoning:
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.