According to the Decision no.1 of 01.04.2021 of the Commission for Emergency Situations of the Republic of Moldova, SIS requests to block the websites todayactual.site and bn-news-romania-365.xyz, which were identified as online sources spreading fake news about the COVID-19 evolution, as well as prevention and protection measures.
The mentioned sources posted fake news on “decisions” adopted by the authorities of some European countries, with the following headlines:
- todayactual.site – “It’s official! Romanians who oppose vaccination are deported from Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, Switzerland”. The content of the article does not match the headline (the headline manipulates readers’ curiosity to maximize the number of pageviews).
- bn-news-romania-365.xyz – “No masks from 1st of May – Klaus Iohannis not wearing protective masks is allowed everywhere…”. The content of this fake article was partially taken from a piece of news from August 2020, entitled “Coronavirus: Mandatory Mask-Wearing Outdoors”, while the text was partially adapted.
At the same time, the mentioned websites shared other fake news that are not related to COVID-19 topic.
Note: The Security and Intelligence Service launched a public campaign to encourage people to report fake news on COVID-19 evolution, as well as prevention and protection measures. Fake news can be reported by filling in a special form that will be examined by the institution.
