Tirana; Study on fake news in Albanian media

 According to a study in Albania, an average of 12 influential fake news have been spread every month last year.

The authors of this monitoring on the Albanian media claimed that the vast majority of these fake news are not even verified even by their numerous republications.

The Institute for Democracy, Media and Culture released today a monitoring of online media, which last year spread 132 fake news, or at least 12 fake news every month.

Tirana; Study on fake news in Albanian media

The survey revealed that the fake news affected a large number of citizens, from school students and college students to football fans.

In most cases, the source of fake news is the new portals and traditional media portals, but also the social networks of private and public officials and the press offices.

A significant portion of the fake news over the past year had been multiplied by republications from other media.

"For the most part the authors of these texts do not verify the facts from many sources of information, and publish these half-stories and half-lies, intentionally or not, often being retrieved and recaptured by other media, which they do not verify the facts, though they see, that the text lacks many elements,” says Erblin Vukaj, co-author of the study.

Republications are viewed by observers as an unprofessional step because they do not add, remove, or verify anything from the first text, without worrying whether or not it is real news.

The study authors commented as growing concern of the misuse of citizen journalism's electronic opportunities to easily disseminate fake news, which are first posted on social media, then copied online and then appropriated by traditional media.

Another observation is that although they have thousands and even millions of followers, some portals share half-truths, and other networks or media copy half of them unverified news, even passing by and without quoting each other, these fake news lose track of the first author.

A similar phenomenon comes from the statements of politicians and spokesmen, whenever they disseminate material about their activities.

A media group has just created the Ethical Media Alliance and has invited the entire Albanian press community to become part of the solution to numerous media problems through ethics and collaboration.

The Socialist majority approved in parliament a so-called anti-defamation legal package to curb, as the government said, fake news, but in turn the initiative added to the media alert that the government was setting up a censorship office under the alibi, the fight against fake news.

The so-called government anti-defamation package, returned to parliament, has been debated over 15 months for it and received a series of criticisms and corrections from the OSCE, EU, CoE and many Albanian and international media organizations that monitor freedom of expression. of the press and aspiring to self-regulation as the best way.
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