Fake news

Jansa might use the disclaimer 'retweets are not endorsements', but politicians like him "use fake profiles as a proxy," said Strok, "to spread information or words that they know would put them in more trouble if they tweeted it themselves."

"He retweets more than 100 tweets a day," Strok said. "Of course they're endorsements."

Trump tactics

Virologist Dr. Milanko Sekler, lawyer Zora Dobricanin Ikodinovic and high-tech crime expert Sasa Zivanovic spoke for "Jutro" on TV Prva.

They also talked about what is forbidden and what is not, where is the line between freedom and abuse of public speech and whether vaccination should be mandatory.

Most Romanians believe that they have been exposed to fake news and misinformation in the recent months, according to an INSCOP survey sent to AGERPRES on Wednesday.

"You can produce a piece of fake news in five minutes, but it takes a few hours or a few days to debunk it." Exposing disinformation and misinformation is a difficult task that requires "meticulous, investigative, time-consuming work," and requires it be presented "without boring [audiences] and without spreading propaganda yourself," Voicu elaborates.

More than half of the citizens of North Macedonia, 55 per cent, said they would be unlikely to get a COVID-19 vaccination if it was offered to them, a survey carried out by the London-based think tank, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, ISD, says.

With vaccination against COVID-19 in full swing, social platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter say they've stepped up their fight against misinformation that aims to undermine trust in the vaccines. But problems abound.

Turkey considers disinformation originating from inside and outside the country as a "national security issue" and tries to take the necessary measures against it, said the communications director on March 6.

"After I confirmed it with my sources, I reported the situation", Can, who at the time worked for the local Izmir newspaper Iz Gazete, told BIRN.

Pressed to name his sources, Can refused. Hours of questioning resulted in a charge of spreading fake news and causing panic. The case was dropped several months later, but Can's chilling experience was far from a one-off. 

Turkey's Communications Directorate has prepared a next-generation fact-checking platform to fight fake news on social media.

The communications authority will reveal the accuracy of news and information spread on social media via the platform. It will be available for IOS and Android.

We don't know whether this particular item of fake news first appeared on a television news broadcast or was initially hatched by some fringe far-right website.