Some portals SUSPICIOUS who publish content in the Albanian language, have created and distributed fake news, claiming to present it as truth.
It concerns a photo shared yesterday (January 21), which falsely claims that former US President Donald Trump had left a letter for the current one, Joe Biden, which reads "Joe, you know I'm the winner."
Such a false claim has been published as real news by several dubious Albanian-language portals.
The news published by some dubious portals:
“Joe, you know I won.” This was the message that made headlines in the world media a little while ago after the last letter that Trump left for Joe Biden after the latter’s inauguration as the 46th President of the United States. Donald Trump was not present at Joe Biden’s inauguration ceremony, but he nevertheless respected one of the traditions in the change of power, by leaving the latter a letter. According to the “Daily Mail,” Trump left a letter for Biden in the Oval Office, but the contents were secret until recently. Trump has avoided almost any tradition that involved a peaceful transfer of power. He did not welcome Biden to the White House after the election and did not greet him at the front door of the residence, before the inauguration ceremony.
Links to suspicious portals that have published this news as fact:
International media outlets and their fact-checking departments have deemed the content of the shared post to be false. This post, according to fact-checkers, cannot be true given the fact that the content of Trump's letter to Biden has not yet been released to the public by the White House. They also justify the falsehood of this claim with the argument that the newly inaugurated President Biden had said that the content of Trump's letter was very generous.
Reuters fact-checkers' reasoning:
"Trump participated in the presidential tradition of leaving a letter for his successor, but the contents had not been revealed as of this writing. President Biden told reporters at the White House on January 20, the day of his inauguration, that “the president wrote a very generous letter,” but “because it was private, I will not release it until I speak with him personally.” ".
According to Reuters fact-checkers, there are other signs that the letter was created using image-editing software. The presidential seal on the forged letter does not match previous examples sent by the Trump White House. Letters from Trump to North Korea's Kim Jong-Un in 2018 (here) and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in 2019 (here) had a gold crest at the top of the paper, while this fake has a colored seal that matches a Wikipedia search result for 'Seal of the President of the United States' (here).
This scam letter also has an address at the bottom, unlike previous letters from the former president, (here).
Analyze:
According to all the data published in this fact check, it turns out that the claim that was presented as true by these dubious media outlets was previously found to be false. For this reason, hibri.info evaluates these articles as “fake news” and “distribution of fake news.”
Reasoning:
The “Fake News” rating is given to media reports that are entirely the product of a medium that itself contains factually incorrect claims or information. Content that is rated as fake news can be reliably determined to have been created and distributed with the intent to misinform the public, i.e., to present a claim that is completely false as fact.
The “Distribution of Fake News” rating is given to media reports that broadcast original content from another media outlet that contains fake news. The rating is only given for broadcasting content that is categorized as fake news.