The earthquake in Turkey, unclear reports of murders, misinformation about Prime Minister Albin Kurti, and fraud with sales were the main topics of misinformation during February 2023.
During February, there was less reporting, which means less misinformation, about northern Kosovo, Serb-majority municipalities, and Kosovo-Serbia relations.
The earthquake in Turkey, unconfirmed information and images surrounding this event have been the most frequently used topic for misinformation. This proves once again that the most current topics continue to be used for the production and distribution of misinformation.
The field in which there is the most misinformation is crime news, followed by politics and social issues.
Clickbait, as a form of misinformation, tops the list this month in the misinformation rating categories.
In the monitoring conducted during February, social media were also included as a type of publisher, alongside real media and dubious portals. As a result of the monitoring, it appears that social media (dominated by Facebook, followed by TikTok) have been the main generator of information disorder.
During the month of February, no institution was mentioned in the misinformation, while Albin Kurti continues to be the most talked about figure.
These data came from monitoring report which presents the state of misinformation for the month of February 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”.
Monitoring for February 2023 shows that the media have created and distributed the most misinformation articles in the clickbait categories with 26%, followed by disinformation with 18% and fake news with 14%. “Clickbait” ratings have been received most by publications in the social and dark chronicle fields, as well as political, security and rule of law topics, such as some unclear articles about murder, prices, electricity, salary increases, visa liberalization, the Special Court, etc. In the “Disinformation” category, misinformation in the dark chronicle, curiosities, politics, security and health, which deal with the earthquake in Turkey, weather, monkeypox, developments in northern Kosovo, etc. Also in the “Fake News” category, the main publications are about the earthquake in Turkey and some articles that deal with political topics.
During February 2023, the main topics of misinformation were the earthquake in Turkey, unclear reports of murders, misinformation about Prime Minister Albin Kurti, trade, etc. What distinguishes this monitoring month is that there were significantly fewer reports on northern Kosovo, Serb-majority municipalities and Kosovo-Serbia relations. These publications were created and distributed in real media, social media and dubious portals in the Albanian language, while articles on political and security topics were published by the Serbian language media, although they were in a small percentage compared to previous monitoring periods. Meanwhile, the main areas of misinformation are dark chronicles with 30%, politics with 20% and social issues with 12%.
The majority of misinformation articles during this month were published on social media at 38%, followed by real media at 37% and dubious portals at 25%. Regarding social media, misinformation content was distributed on Facebook (64%), TikTok (29%) and YouTube (7%). All social media articles are in Albanian, dealing with topics ranging from dark news, curiosities and politics that have received assessments of fake news, disinformation and conspiracy theories. In addition, over 90% of publications this month were created by Albanian-language media and only 8% by those in Serbian. Misinformation articles published by Albanian-language media have dealt with various topics within the framework of dark news, politics, social issues, curiosities and various advertisements. Meanwhile, Serbian-language media have reported on misinformation in the political and security fields regarding the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue and unfounded claims that some incidents in Serb-majority municipalities in Kosovo are ethnically motivated.
Compared to previous monitoring periods, during this month (February 2023), the media and publishers of misinformation articles have not discussed any institution. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Albin Kurti continues to be the most discussed this month by dubious portals and social media publishers in Albanian, as well as by real media in Serbian on topics in the political and security fields.