The Facebook page "Live News" published today (March 7) an article titled ""Stay alert..."/ Flood ALARM issued, here are the areas and cities at risk."
After fact-checking conducted by hibrid.info, it has been confirmed that the article is about weather forecasting in Albania and that it is old.
So, the site in question published an article about the weather forecast for October 26th of last year, which it presented as current.
Link to the article published by the "Live News" page on Facebook:
Hibrid.info, during its internet searches, found the original article on the weather forecast published by the Albanian information portal "gazeta-shqip.com" on October 26, 2023. (see here)
Also found was the official press release from the National Civil Protection Agency of Albania, from that period, which confirms the fact that this forecast was for October of last year. (see here)
Meanwhile, to further confirm the fact that this news is old, hibrid.info has also found the weather forecast for this week on the official page of the Military Meteorological Service published on Facebook. The announcement from the SHMU states that there will be unstable weather conditions, while it is announced that there will be low-intensity rainfall but at no point is there a warning of flooding. (see here)
Analyze:
A Facebook page with content in Albanian, using an old article about the weather forecast in Albania, has published it as current, warning of flooding in several areas of Albania.
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this article as "Clickbait" and "Disinformation".
Reasoning:
“Clickbait” is considered to be informational content whose title is general and does not disclose the location of the event, context and relevance. Such texts and articles aim to attract the attention of the audience with sensational headlines with misleading consequences, which do not accurately clarify the content of the article. “Clickbait” headlines are mainly made to attract readability in the case of media publications and/or to earn from clicks in the case of commercial publications.
"Disinformation" is defined as information content that contains a "mix" of inaccurate sources or even half-truthful attributes, and that is created and/or distributed with the deliberate intention of causing harm. The motive behind the producers/distributors of disinformation content lies in achieving a political, financial, psychological or social goal.