On 07.05.2019, a fake news appeared that the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of North Macedonia is leaving his office.
According to the portal magazin.mk, the Minister will leave the country and will take a new job. The portal that published the fake news that Dimitrov is leaving for a new job as councillor and analyst in the “Brookings Institute” in Washington is citing diplomatic sources. The fake news was shared by other portals as well, but some of them deleted it later.
Original Article
Archived article
This fake news was published on the following portals: Republika.mk, Markukule.mk (later deleted), Lider.mk, News24.vip (later deleted), Skopje24.mk (later deleted), Denesen.mk (later deleted).
The same day, Infomax portal published a text with a different headline, but the same context.
Beside the portals that published this fake news, in its dissemination the social networks played a role. The texts that were published on the portals, were shared on several Facebook groups. Please find evidence in a form of a picture bellow.
The text from the Infomax portal was shared on the social networks 320 times, with 881 comments, 1.606 emoticons. With this, the total number of interactions is 2.807.
The text from the Magazin portal was shared on the social networks 277 times, with 768 comments, 1.207 emoticons. With this, the total number of interactions is 2.252.
The text from the Republika portal was shared on the social networks 105 times, with 312 comments, 426 emoticons. With this, the total number of interactions is 843.
The text from the Markukule portal was shared on the social networks 104 times, with 151 comments, 170 emoticons. With this, the total number of interactions is 425.
Bellow you can see pictures from part of the Facebook groups that shared this fake news.
What is symptomatic is that sharing on the Facebook groups as presented on the pictures above, is obviously well orchestrated due to the fact that all the shares are within a time sequence of only few minutes, depending on the portal from which the text is shared.
Here is a scholar example presented through pictures on how the dissemination of disinformation and fake news on social media functions. It refers to the sharing of the text on the Facebook group Pelagonija, whereas in a record of 4 minutes it is shared 34 times.
Besides the sharing of this fake news, what concerns the most are the comments. In the comments on the Facebook posts of the groups, you can read offenses and belittling of the Minister and his family, naming him as American spy, wishing him even death.
Due to the explicit and vulgar language used in almost every comment, we present pictures with the comments on only few of the groups where the fake news was shared.
This case is classical fake news, since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has denied this speculation.
The cabinet of Nikola Dimitrov has stated that the news and speculation that the Minister of Foreign Affairs will not be head of the Macedonian diplomacy anymore and that he has agreed to work in the USA are “an insolent lie”.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of North Macedonia informed that it has submitted an appeal against the published untruths in the journalists’ texts to the Council of Media Ethics of Macedonia.
As well as from the MFA, a denial was sent by the Brookings Institute also, which was published by the portals: Republika, Netpress and others.
Anyhow, there is one fact and that is that with dissemination of the fake news on social networks, the range of its impact and damage cannot be measured.
The media must report professionally, in accordance with the journalism principles. The public can not be a target of speculative narratives and false informing.
As part of the pillars of the Prespa Agreement, this attack on the Minister Dimitrov gains a dimension of attack on the Euro-Atlantic integration of the Republic of North Macedonia.
Additionally, the text refers to the former US Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, being now part of Brookings Institute. By definition, this way of presenting the facts and conditions in order to manipulate and deceive the public, represents a disinformation and fake news.
F2N2 remains consistent in its efforts for correct and true informing of the public, especially in the field of the Euro-Atlantic integration of the Republic of North Macedonia.
*The data presented in this analysis is collected by using Crowdtangle and othe opensource tools
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