Dear readers, dear friends,

You are receiving this very first issue of the Bosnia Watch newsletter, which is a sister publication to other European Values’ newsletter that you might know: Balkans Watch Briefing.

We are producing this newsletter with our partners from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Zashto Ne.

The objective of this newsletter is to provide you with the information about the biggest and most notable disinformation cases from the information space of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as some of the efforts to counter disinformation in the region.

The first issue is dedicated to disinformation cases related to the spread of Covid-19.

We hope that you will like its content and will subscribe to it. Any feedback and suggestions are more than welcome.

Yours,

Editorial team

If you are interested in the Bosnian version of this newsletter, please subscribe.

Desinformation claiming that Palestine was taken off the Google maps was published and shared by many local portals, but also Russian media like Sputnik, RT, RIA, Gazeta with further explanation how Palestine, on the contrary, was featured on Yandex and its' maps. The truth of the story is that is 4 years old disinformation and Google has corrected that story by saying that Palestine was never on Google maps, only Gaza and the West bank.

Lately, there have been numerous theories about the background of the protests in the US, and different players used that narrative for their own gain. One of such stories is a story from Sputnik about a russian intelligence person has found out the background of the protests. However, Andrei Bezrukov, as these articles claim, has just made his statementabout protests and allegged instigators of them, the opinion that is based on unverified information and without any quality evidences for these claims.

Reporting on the fact that the sampling pads that are used for obtaining samples for SARS-CoV-2 testing are sold from Italy to a USA based company, numerous portals have presented this as a „scandal“ by stressin the role of NATO plane. The facts show that a business deal between two countries was implemented with the help of a NATO plane that flew the sampling pads to the US, and the were not stolen or kidnapped.

Raskrinkavanje, 29.04.2020

Virus SARS-CoV-2 was not planted in Wuhan by british agents, nor the epidemic in China was artificially started in order for Britain to take down Xi Jinping – this is just another conspiracy theory from Igor Panarin, Russian political analyst that was publicly known for spreading theories of this kind not founded on facts on other topics. These claims, taken from Panarin's You-tube channel was published first by an anonymous portal Fakti and then was covered by additional over 40 portals in BiH and the region.

Raskrinkavanje, 23.04.2020

Several portals in BiH and the region had published a collumn by a journalist Zlatko Dizdarević, where he, among other things, states a few untrue claims about americal politician Henry Kissinger, as well as philanthropist Bill Gates and their alleged connection to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This collumn has originaly been published by Buka portal, but, after the Raskrinkavanje debunk, Buka has taken it down and published Raskrinkavanje analysis, that shows good practice example in the media and responsability in the times of a global health crisis when spreding of disinformation can have multiple negative implications to public health and safety of the citizens.

Raskrinkavanje, 30.03.2020

Media outlet Dešavanja has published an article on March 22 claiming COVID-19 virus is nonexistent, but rather a scam of the century amid China's profits in billions. This article has generated over 22,000 interactions on their Facebook page, and began spreading on Facebook as a status post.

Raskrinkavanje, 29.03.2020

A spread of a viral message advising people to drink lemon and baking soda with hot water claiming the beverage is creditable for absence of death casualties caused by COVID-19 in Israel. None of that is true.

Raskrinkavanje, 28.03.2020

Reporting on Russia's decision to send aid to Italy, which has been severely hit by pandemic virus SARS-CoV-2, has also included a claim spread in media that nine EU states have not permitted Russian aircrafts to fly through their airspace. This claim is not true, and a tweet from a Russian official claiming Poland did not authorize flight over their territory has been deleted subsequent to a press release from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Raskrinkavanje, 27.03.2020

A viral video where a man from Serbia "explains" that a drug for SARS-CoV-2 has been manufactured in Russia for years. Dozens, if not hundreds of thousands of people have viewed and/or shared the video. The drug in the video is called Arbidol, and, unfortunately, it is not a cure for COVID-19.

Facebook page „Pravo na Slobodu“ – This is a Facebook page with some 100.000 followers that is posting regional and global theories of conspiracy about the novel coronavirus and in general. It is promoting anti-western sentiment in general, spreading xenophobic and rasist ideas, promoting global theories like the one about the connection between 5G and the pandemic, or local on how Bosnian Pyramids in Visoko cure the novel coronavirus.

Famous persons promoting consipracy theories – there have been many global and regional examples of famous people promoting different conspiracy theories related to the pandemic, which in some cases can be very dangerous. We have seen that happen on the global scale, but recently there have been several very problematic public statements coming from sportsmen like Novak Đoković, musicians, businessman or even doctors promoting different conspiracies and confusing the publim even more.

Regional Network SEECheck, consisting of 7 debunking online platforms thatare fighting agains disinformation, has started a joined facebook page and a Viber community to try to stop spreading of disinformation through that platform.

Facebook launches Third Party Fact-checking program in BiH and the region – Facebook has finally started the Third Party Fact-checking program in the region, cooperating with Raskrinkavanje and 4 more regional partners on debunking disinformation and making Facebook users aware of that. This would be a great boost for the regional fight against disinformation, especially in these challenging pandemic times.