In December 2020, Raskrinkavanje analyzed three fake news pieces targeting Joe Biden, the newly elected President of the United States. These three articles focused on the new administration’s approach to the Western Balkans, claiming that it intends to abolish Republika Srpska and furthermore recreate Yugoslavia.

Two false news articles purported that Biden is planning to abolish the Republika Srpska, one of the two entities in Bosnia, while the third one contained misinformation that Biden planned to resurrect Yugoslavia. In both cases (the abolition of the RS and the resurrection of Yugoslavia), the source was Kurir, the Serbian media, while the disinformation about the abolition of the RS was further published by RTRS, the RS public broadcaster.

The first false news about the alleged abolition of RS manipulated a statement of a professor from Johns Hopkins University in the United States, Daniel Serwer, while speaking with Dnevni Avaz, a Bosnian daily. Serwer stated that one of the possible tasks of new Biden’s administration will be reform of the Dayton Peace Agreement. Serbian Kurir misrepresented the possibility of such a reform as an announcement of the abolition of RS, which than was reported by the media from Bosnia, Serbia and Montenegro, such as: Sputnik Srbija, IN4S, Naša borba, Dnevno (.ba), Dnevno (.hr).

In second example of false news on this topic, the RS public broadcaster manipulatively presented statements from the hearing of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the US House of Representatives, dedicated to the Balkans.

RTRS did not fully publish Professor Serwer's statement, rather omitting the part in which he says that no one outside Bosnia can reform its constitution. Slobodna Bosna, a Sarajevo portal, carried such news, under the headline that Biden would abolish RS.

The truth is that during the hearing of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives of the US Congress, dedicated to the Balkans, no one spoke about the abolition of RS.

However, the news was further disseminated by numerous portals in Bosnia, such as: Centralna Bosna, BH-Magazin, Bolja Bosna, Bosniaks.info, Za Srebrenicu, Sarajevograd, Mreza (.co), Dnevne vijesti, Glas Srpske.

In the third piece of fake news related to Biden, several news portals expectation of diplomat Timothy Less that the new US president may be faced with the task of connecting the Western Balkans region. Some maintain that this would look like Yugoslavia, presenting headlines with the claim that "Biden resurrects Yugoslavia" as "revealed by the American media".

One article making such a claim was first published by the Serbian Kurir, and then by other media, mostly from Serbia and Montenegro, such as: Pravda, Mondo (.me), Dnevna novost, Extra vijesti 24h, Radio Balkan seher mahala, Viralne vijesti, Bijeljina press, Atraktivno, Pozitiv media, Montenegro click, Sandzak live, Crni bombarder, Trend info, Eskpresno i Nedeljnik afera.

Gina Haspel, director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, in was subject to false news reporting in December, as first pronounced dead and then arrested, wounded and deported. In both cases, the misinformation came from social networks. Fairy tales about Haspel being arrested, wounded and deported appeared in the domestic language area for the first time on Nikola Sandulović's Facebook profile, and on that profile alone he had more than 3,000 interactions.

Nikola Sandulovic is the president of the Republican Party of Serbia and a supporter of conspiracy theories, and misinformation about Haspel is part of incorrect narratives spread by supporters of the QAnon movement. QAnon is a wide-ranging, completely unfounded theory that says that President Trump is waging a secret war against elite Satan-worshipping pedophiles in government, business and the media.

After the visit of the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia to Zagreb, Jutarnji list, daily newspaper from Croatia, published a headline in its print edition in which it claimed that Lavrov told NATO not to "touch Republika Srpska". There is no such sentence in the article except in the title.

This title was picked up by many regional news portals regarding the visit, despite the fact that Lavrov made no such statement.

The correct information is that the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs said that the decision on the military neutrality of Republika Srpska must be respected, but that Bosnia and Herzegovina is a sovereign state, so Russia does not need to oppose its decisions - as reported by N1 television.

However, the misinformative claim was published by numerous media in Serbia, BiH, Montenegro and Croatia, such as: RTRS, IN4S, Glas Srpske, Frontal, Argumenti, ATV.

At the time of the attack by Trump supporters on the US Congress, QAnon profiles spread on Twitter and Facebook alleging that members of the Antifa or Black Lives Matter group had invaded the Capitol. As evidence for their claims, they shared photos of Jake Angeli, a self-proclaimed "QAnon shaman." The whole story soon took a big turn stating that he was an actor, paid to act as Antifa supporter, and that all of that was part of “The Plan.”

In the domestic BCMS-speaking area this misinformation was first published by the anonymous portals Istinom protiv laži and Ekspres vesti, and then by Sputnik Srbija.

Posts on Facebook by Nikola Sandulović, president of the Republican Party of Serbia and a supporter of conspiracy theories, with the same topic have reached thousands of interactions.

The basic misinformation is that the photos of a man in a "Viking costume" and another man with a tattoo on his hand actually show members of the Antifa movement, pedophiles who deliberately caused riots for which Trump supporters should be blamed.

There is no evidence for these claims, and the source of the fake news is the Washington Times, which has previously published various conspiracy theories about the Antifa movement.

A video that allegedly proves that the vaccination against the COVID-19 disease of the newly elected Vice President of the United States of America, Kamala Harris, was faked is spreading on social networks, mostly on Facebook with thousands of interactions. This is despite the fact that the video shows nothing but the usual practice of vaccination, and it can be clearly seen that Kamala Harris did receive the vaccine.

The 40-second video shows the moment the nurse gives the vaccine to the US Vice President-Elect and then at 20 seconds after Harris received the vaccine, the moment the nurse returns the plastic cap to the needle is zoomed in, using the arm of the armchair on which Harris sitting.

This allegedly proves that her vaccination was fake, and that she did not even receive the vaccine.

In fact, the moment that is zoomed in, shows a nurse who, after vaccination, tries to assemble the protective mechanism of the syringe with one hand using the armchair handle. The use of such a mechanism on syringes is neither foreign nor new. The purpose of using this mechanism is to protect medical workers who inject drugs. To avoid their contact with the needle, a collapsible part of the syringe was introduced

The video was originally published in the English-speaking area, and at the end of the year, it was first published in the speaking area of ​​the Western Balkans on the Facebook page "UNS-United People of Serbia", as part of the narrative of anti-vaxxers who, without any evidence, claim that vaccines are harmful and that the elite never actually receive them.

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