On August 25, the news portals Republika.rs and Srbija danas published fake news that the rebellion against the government began in Montenegro, and that the dissatisfied citizens moved the police car with their hands, which was blocking the road.
Republika was the first to publish the news: (VIDEO) EXCAVATOR REVOLUTION IN MONTENEGRO! The revolted people said „IT’S ENOUGH“ to the regime in Podgorica. Shortly after that, Srbija danas republished the whole text with a headline: WITH EXCAVATOR ON THE REGIME, WITH BARE HANDS ON THE POLICE CAR: People launched the „revolution“ against Milo’s torture! (VIDEO).
The texts read that the citizens started fighting the Montenegrin police in order to break the blockade on a yet unknown location. They added that „the excavator revolution“ started in Montenegro, and the video description says – take a look at what the dirty government forced the citizens to do.
Together with the text, the news portals published a Facebook video of Vladimir Savic, the President of the Association of Former Police Officers, a soldier and a security services, who did not explain in the description that the video is old but also did not state that the record was created two days ago. The video was shared more than 430 times on Facebook and the majority of users thought that the incidents occurred on Tuesday, August 25.
In fact, there was no rebellion on the Montenegrin roads on Tuesday. The report from TV Vijesti created five years ago (published in June 2015) showing the protest of the workers from bauxite mine in Niksic which used to be in the state of bankruptcy back then, was used for this fake news. The workers protested since the Company Board of Trustees refused the offer of Miodrag Davidovic, the owner of Neksan, to buy the company.
The posts of this kind only represent the continuation of the disinformation campaign which has been led by the Belgrade-based tabloids for months, and which has been additionally amplified before the parliamentary elections in Montenegro.