With the increase in the number of media in Kosovo, especially online ones, and with the advancement of technology, the possibility of spreading fake news has increased.

In addition to adults, fake news also attacks younger people.

Thus, trainings through which information is provided on how to differentiate between true and fake news, as well as protection from the latter are being considered necessary.

Elaboration through examples and photographs of the terms disinformation, misinformation, propaganda, fraud and others were among the key points of the training within the project "Media Education against disinformation for non-majority communities in Kosovo".

The students together with their professors from the Turkish community in Prizren, through this training, learned how to distinguish fake news, their purpose, and also developed critical thinking regarding the contents of online media and social networks.

The Turkish student at the "Gjon Buzuku" Gymnasium in Prizren, Adak Celina, said that he recently read a fake news in the media, which said that Germany will close its borders to all countries.

"Today, the things that we talked about that I enjoyed the most was information about information, disinformation as well as propaganda can be used by the media to effect and influence people, it was interesting. I definitely knew these terminologies, but not know how to define them as well. So now I definitely feel like I've learned quite a lot of stuff, I enjoyed it. There is definitely a lot of fake news, not just in Kosovo but throughout the entire world, and I think it's a good thing that young people are being trained on this. For example, something that I've read about recently was that Germany was about to close down all of its borders on the 17th of September, but it is totally a lie. And that's just one example of disinformation being used to target people", said Celina.

Also the student Burak Grosa, while emphasizing that he has learned that one should not believe everything he reads on social networks, indicated that he has come across fake news about the war in Gaza.

“It was really interesting topic for me to learn about, so it was really fun. I learned that there is a lot of fake news spread in social media and that we have to be careful about them, for example, I read about some fake news about the war of Gaza, and I just gained some knowledge for future, to not believe everything that I see on the social media", said Grosa.

Meanwhile, the senior official of education for the Turkish community in the Municipality of Prizren, Ferdi Kovac, considered holding this training as very important.

"Today we participated (in training) with students from communities that use social media. We, as the municipal directorate of education, we cooperate with the US Embassy and are supported with these very important trainings. I believe that the training was very good for the students who are using social media and we had a good time", said Kovac.

The project "Media education against disinformation for non-majority communities in Kosovo", supported by the United States Embassy in Prishtina, started about three years ago. This project has included training for students from non-majority communities in most cities of Kosovo. Its purpose is for the young people of these communities to learn to distinguish fake content from real ones. Also, through the topics covered during the training, it is intended to develop the critical thinking of the participants. /Z. Zeneli/