Wrote: Endrit Berisha
Through an article shared on several Facebook pages, it was claimed that a medication had been found that permanently reduced blood sugar levels.
“Salvation for diabetics! Endocrinologist showed how you can permanently lower your sugar levels in just 24 hours! Read more,” is the caption of the sponsored post published on the “Second Ai”, “Keep Your Alive” and “Zei Trodowcel” Facebook pages on Friday (June 21). In the Facebook post, the pages used a photo of an RTK television presenter, the media outlet’s logo, and a doctor in the background.
What's wrong with this publication?
After verification by hibrid.info, it turns out that the post uses manipulated photos and leads to a suspicious page with a fake article.
Link to the "Second Ai" Facebook post:
Why are the Facebook posts and the article's website suspicious?
In the Facebook post, the pages in question published a photo of an RTK presenter during a television broadcast and a doctor. However, after a search by hibrid.info, no content related to a similar publication was found on the RTK website (see here).
The pages in question sponsored the post. Together, they have dozens of followers and in the page description they write that they are restaurants or music pages.
They have received several comments in which commenters accuse the sites of fraud.
Clicking on the Facebook post leads to the suspicious page “mk7.teaequisphere.pro”. The article that opens has fake content and old photos taken from other countries. “On 20.06.2024, the decision was made to allocate the quota for diabetes treatment” is the title of this article.
Link to the suspicious article:
Hibrid.info had covered the same content in May (see here). The difference in the previous case was in the publication on Facebook. At that time, the suspicious content on Facebook was accompanied by a claim for help from the Kosovo Red Cross. After the publication by hibrid.info, the Kosovo Red Cross also reacted (see here).
Apart from the text, the photographs used in the new article are the same as in that case. Only the dates and the website domain have changed. The main photograph again shows a meeting of the Health Committee of the Ukrainian Parliament (see here). This article also uses the name “Ajsha Krasta” as the endocrinologist who initiated the “decision on the quota for diabetes treatment”. But after hibrid.info’s research, it turns out that the photo used in this case is of Turkish doctor Meltem Goreli, taken from a video of January 3, 2022 on Instagram. (see here)
At the end of the article, the article leads to a “discount offer” to purchase the product “Diatea”. To alert, it states that “due to the large number of orders, the manufacturer had to limit the terms”. “The promotion lasts until 22.06.2024 inclusive”, it says at the end of the article. And this product is offered “with a 50 percent discount” and costs 20 euros. There is also a timer that counts down, but as soon as it reaches 0, it returns to the beginning again.
The use of several words from other languages also makes the site suspicious.
At the end of the promotional content on the suspicious website are some comments praising the product. But their profiles are not clickable to verify that they are real.
At the bottom of the page there is also an address in Moscow, Russia.
Analyze:
The pages "Second Ai", "Keep Your Alive" and "Zei Trodowcel" have published a photograph through which they claimed that "salvation for diabetics" has been found, using manipulated photographs of an alleged RTK television broadcast and of a doctor who, after verification, turned out to be Turkish.
The posts lead to an article on a dubious website with the purpose of advertising a product. The article contains old photos that are not related to the alleged issue the pages are advertising. Furthermore, the articles contain content in Russian. This is not the first time that such content has circulated in Albanian on Facebook (see here).
Based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this content as "fraud".
Reasoning:
The “Deception” rating is given to informational content that is manipulated in terms of visual (deepfake, cheapfake), audio, or textual content to deceive the audience. This form of deception is usually used to produce false and manipulated content.