The North, healing products, and climatic conditions were the main topics about which he was misinformed during March 2024.
Based on the treatment of misinformation content during this month, many different political topics were used most often to misinform. After political content, misinformation content from the social and security fields was used most often to misinform.
As a result of finding and addressing 62 pieces of misinformation published in real media, social media, and dubious portals, clickbait articles and fake news have dominated the misinformation ecosphere, followed by disinformation and hoaxes.
Among the six misinformation pieces where institutions were discussed, the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) is the most discussed institution, linked to claims about arming this institution with heavy military artillery.
Kosovo's Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, is the most discussed figure in context with other personalities, such as Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and former President Vojislav Kostunica, in 3 misinformation content where the personalities were discussed.
These data came from monitoring report which presents the state of misinformation for the month of February 2024 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”.
Based on the monitoring and treatment of 62 pieces of misinformation during the month of March 2024, it turns out that clickbait articles with 21% and fake news with 21% have dominated in terms of misinformation categories. Because during this month, misinformation has not focused on a topic that has received the main focus and that some misinformation content from the main field has been assessed as clickbait and fake news, it has caused these categories to be ranked with the highest percentage. These two categories are followed by disinformation with 20%, fraud, unverified content, etc.
Misinformation published by various publishers (real media, dubious portals and social media) about developments in the field of security in northern Kosovo has made this topic dominate with 8% during the month of March. The diversity of topics has meant that, although this topic prevails, the percentage of misinformation related to it is low. Compared to the previous month (February), the topic of the north with 5% ranked sixth among the topics about which there was the most misinformation. During this month, several misleading contents were published regarding claims about products that cure various diseases. Within the scope of the misinformation contents treated during this month, old news related to climatic conditions were published with the claim to present them as current. Also, misleading contents were published with the claim to provide loans or express consumer satisfaction with loans. Content coded as tragic cases (death and murder), where in addition to clickbait articles for which the location of the event is not disclosed in the title, fake news has also been published with claims about the death of the son of artist Ardit Gjebrea, etc.
In terms of fields, politics with 27% continues to be the main field where the most misinformation was spread, followed by social with 26% and security with 21%. The publication of misinformation on a variety of topics from various political developments, related to the association of Serbian municipalities, NATO intervention in 1999, the March 2004 riots, the dialogue and others, has made this field dominate during the month of March. Almost all content from the field of politics was published in Albanian in the media (15%) and social media (11%). Disinformation (10%), fake news (6%) and clickbait articles (4%) are the misinformation categories with which misinformation on a variety of topics from the field of politics was assessed.
The political field is followed by the social one, where misinformation from this field was published on social media (13%), dubious portals (5%) and real media (3%), dominated by misleading content related to healing products and lending. These two fields are followed by the security field, where a significant portion was assessed as fake news (6%), disinformation (5%) and clickbait (3%) and was published on social media (13%) and real media (5%), which had to do with the arming of the KSF, developments on the Kosovo-Serbia border and the north.
Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti is the most talked about figure in the context of other personalities, such as with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić in the claims that they met for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, as well as in the old statement re-published as current by Vučić regarding the non-acceptance of the association. The media has re-published a photo montage of Kurti with former Serbian President Vojislav Kostunica. The second most talked about figure in the misinformation content published in March is Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, regarding her public statements disinformation about the NATO intervention in 1999 and the March riots in 2004.
As part of the control of statements and promises, the statement of the Minister of Health, Arben Vitia, in an interview published on February 25, was addressed, in which he stated that doctors in Kosovo have one of the highest salaries in the Western Balkans region. After verifying the facts by hibrid.info, it was confirmed that compared to the Western Balkan countries, only Serbia has lower salaries for doctors, compared to Kosovo, which, according to the assessment, makes the statement of Minister Vitia incorrect.