The dubious portal "specialja.com" on April 18 published an article titled "Endriti meets his half-brother for the first time - Thaçi's illegitimate child."
This article also shows a photo of Endrit Thaçi, together with his father, former Kosovo president Hashim Thaçi, but the latter's face has been rejuvenated through an application filter that allows you to see what an aged or rejuvenated face might look like.
After research conducted by hibrid.info through search engines, it was found that this article has satirical content, published by the portal "Kukunews.net", which is known for articles with such content. Meanwhile, the dubious portal "specialja.com" has published this news, claiming to present it as true.
Hibrid.info has not been able to find the authentic article on "Kukunews.net", but this satirical portal has been quoted in the text by another dubious portal "lajmetari.net", which in 2019 distributed the same article.
Links to the article published by "specialja.com" and "lajmetari.net":
Below you can find the original photograph showing former Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi with his son Endrit.
Analyze:
The dubious portal "specialja.com" has published an article with satirical content, previously published by the satirical portal "Kukunews.net", which it claimed to present as real news.
The same article was published in 2019, by another dubious portal "lajmetari.net", where it refers to the satirical portal "Kukunews.net".
However, hibrid.info has not been able to find the authentic article on the satirical portal, which has likely been deleted from the website.
After fact-checking analysis, hibrid.info rates this article as "satire".
Reasoning:
The “Satire” rating includes content that uses premeditated news that uses satire to portray reality. This is also a way of reporting that is not problematic, if the media manages to argue that it is satirical content.
The purpose of including this assessment in the methodology is to indicate this type of content in situations where it can be claimed to be a genuine media report and when it becomes potentially harmful in the event of further transmission without being able to clearly explain that it is a satirical text. So in such cases, if a text fails to clarify that it has satirical content, it may be understood as genuine and, as a result, may create a wrong opinion in the audience. However, the media that publishes this type of content cannot be on one of the negative lists solely because of the publication of this type of content.