The circulation of videos on social networks, where well-known political figures from Kosovo appear dancing belly dance, are just some of the creations of AI, which are served to the audience.
It is the young people who are considered to use social networks more and that the possibility of showing them such content is considered to be greater.
During the media education training, which was attended by about 30 students together with their teachers from the “Eqrem Qabej” high school in Vushtrri, they shared some of the cases where they had come across such fake content.
The XI grade student from this high school, Erisa Tërnava, mentioned some of the fake content that was exposed to her while exploring social networks.
She said that she has seen a deep fake video, where a girl appears dancing “belly dance”, but the image of one of Kosovo’s political figures has been placed on her face.
Tërnava said that through Artificial Intelligence (AI), content has been created where it can be seen that the singer Katy Perry has participated in the Met Gala, but according to her this is completely untrue.
“Of the social networks that we use a lot these days is TikTok. On Tik ok, a belly dancer is appearing whose face has been replaced with the face of a public figure, with a Kosovo politician who looks like is dancing, but who is not, it is fake. The Met Gala is held every year and one of the people who couldn’t be there is Katy Perry. They took her as a public figure and through artificial intelligence they replaced her face, organized her dress, and arranged her outfit, and the whole public, because she is quite famous, they all thought that that person was invited at the Met Gala, but actually she wasn’t there at all. This training is very important for me”, said Tërnava.
Likewise, the student Mal Klinaku mentions some of the fake news he has read recently.
At the time when the issue of the dinar was being discussed massively, Klinaku said that he had read fake news, which said that the relations between the United States of America and Kosovo have completely broken down.
“One of the fake news that I heard a while ago about the dinar issue was that America broke its relations with the state of Kosovo, but later it was verified that this was not true. One of the information that I heard that is untrue was that during the debate about the dinar, the relations between the United States of America and Kosovo were completely broken. This week it is thought that France has sent military troops to the Ukraine-Russia war in aid of Ukraine. However, this was also fake news… This training seems very important to me as it is helping me with my communication skills and how to distinguish fake news from real news”, said Klinaku.
The student Saba Alija also says that false information is often being served to the readers by different media.
She said that she has read fake news where it was said that there had been several explosions in the north of Mitrovica and that several people had died.
In addition, Alija mentioned another fake content, where some portals had written that the wife of the singer Shkëlzen Jetishi had died, but this information was denied by Jetishi himself.
“I often read untrue and fake news in the media. One of the fake news that I have read recently was that there were several explosions in the north of Mitrovica where several people were killed. However, it was later proven to be fake news. One of the other (fake) news I read was about Shkëlzen Jetishi’s wife, where it is said that she is dead, but the singer himself reacted with a photo showing that his wife is alive and it is fake news”, said Alija.
Meanwhile, the director of the “Eqrem Qabej” high school in Vushtrri, Galip Avdiu, said that young people are falling prey to fake news to a large extent.
He emphasized that the holding of media education trainings, whose main purpose is to educate young people to distinguish between true and fake content, is necessary.
Avdiu said that the students of this school will benefit from this training by receiving information about fake news, so that they do not fall prey to them.
“It is very important that this topic is being addressed today with our students for our reasons that Kosovo and our young people today face a lot of false information. And the treatment of this topic for students is important. They benefit from this perspective because they will be able to distinguish when one information is true and when another is false. Thus, it is achieved that our students, our youth do not fall prey to false information that usually brings a lot of damage to our society… In our society we have such (fake) news, we even have a lot, so our young people and the students of this school fall prey to this false information. Because it is very necessary for the new generations to learn from this perspective”, said Avdiu.
The students participating in this training expressed the need for holding this training, for which they said that they have received useful information regarding the trend of fake news. They said that after this training, they will have more critical thinking regarding the information they read every day in the media.
The project “Media education against disinformation for students from non-majority communities in Kosovo” is supported by the United States Embassy in Prishtina.
