A Facebook social media page published yesterday (January 18) an image of a train bearing the inscription "Kosovo is Albania".
The post of this image published on Facebook by the page "Realiteti" is captioned: "Switzerland has written on the train carriage Kosovo Albania in honor of the Albanians and the footballers who have made history in Switzerland."
After verification of the facts conducted by hibrid.info, it was found that this claim is untrue and that the image presented is edited.
Link to the image published by the "Realiteti" page:
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=780715000765925&set=a.628425249328235
This post made by the aforementioned page, as of the publication of this article, has managed to collect 996 reactions, 44 comments and 48 shares. (see photo below)
Hibrid.info, after researching online search engines, found that this photograph has been circulating on the internet since 2017, when the Swiss media outlet "Blick.ch" wrote an article about the history of this photograph, saying that "An edited image of an SBB train with the inscription "Kosovo is Albania" is spreading rapidly on social networks."
For the same photo, there is also an article from the local media outlet "Insajderi.com" where it is shown that the spokesperson for SBB-Swiss Federal Railways (see here), Jean-Philippe Schmidt had clarified that this photo is edited and not real. (see here)
Jean-Philippe Schmidt's full statement as reported by "Insajderi.com": "This is a vulgar photo montage, made by unknown people, with computer programs."
Analyze:
Through an image showing a train with the inscription "Kosovo is Albania", a Facebook page has falsely claimed that it is an image from a train in Switzerland as a sign of support for Albanians and Albanian footballers there.
However, after verifying the facts, hibrid.info has found that the claim is untrue and that the image presented is fabricated and has been circulating online since 2017.
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this post as "Unverified Content".
Reasoning:
The “Unverified” rating is given to those media reports that do not provide sufficient information to confirm the claims made in the report, and which have not been able to confirm the same due to the lack or non-possession of reliable sources.