<\/p>\n
On April 5, for the first time in parliamentary hearings, a transgender woman delivered a speech from the podium of the National Assembly. A number of false stories followed the speech.<\/p>\n
\nThe topic of mushroom websites<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
During the hearings on the topic of \u201cNational Human Rights Agenda: United Nations Universal Periodic Review,\u201d Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission, Naira Zohrabyan gave a problematic response<\/a> to Lilit Martirosyan\u2019s speech.<\/p>\n
The speech was followed by a heated debate on social networks, a demonstration took place in front of parliament. There were numerous death threats, many experts from different fields were invited to dozens of discussions, even a priest was placed on temporary leave.<\/p>\n
Fake news spread in this information storm. For example, the HYNEWS2 website published<\/a> information that \u201cA boy presenting himself as a girl was brutally beaten in the middle of the street.\u201d According to the view counter on the website, the material was viewed 4456 times (at the moment of writing this article).<\/p>\n
HYNEWS2 is a mushroom site<\/a>, meaning it\u2019s not a news outlet, but a website that makes money with contextual advertising at the expense of views. Mushroom websites usually do not create their own content, and often spread fake and semi-true news. <\/p>\n
An old photograph was used in the publication of the incident. Back in 2011, this photo was tied to an article<\/a> regarding the violence against members of the Armenian National Congress.<\/p>\n
Moreover, there was only a headline in the mushroom website, and in the place of the main article was a text from Wikipedia\u2019s \u201cHomosexuality\u201d page. The material was also attached to Shabat.am news\u2019 video about the burning of another transgender woman\u2019s apartment in 2018.<\/p>\n
The HYNEWS2 site tried to present the news of the case in 2018 as well on April 12<\/a> (1707 views) and 13 <\/a>(367 views). There are no articles in either of these two publications, one repeated the same title twice, and there is an absence of text altogether in the other.<\/p>\n
From April 7 to 14, the HYNEWS2 website had published about 20 posts regarding Lilit Martirosyan\u2019s speeches.<\/p>\n
\nAnother \u201cgay parade\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Fake users also spread fake news. For example, user Yervand Erzrumyan posted<\/a> on April 6 that he had received \u201cserious\u201d information that a gay pride parade will be held in Armenia this summer, and that it is \u201csponsored by state structures.\u201d Erzrumyan did not provide any additional information, nor did he mention details about the news source.<\/p>\n
Mamikon Hovsepyan, Executive Director of Pink NGO, which deals with the protection of LGBT people\u2019s rights, called the information a \u201clie\u201d in a conversation with Media.am. \u201cSuch provocation happens every year.\u201d<\/p>\n
News about a gay pride parade in Armenia is regularly circulated in the media. For example, \u201cA1+\u201d published<\/a> such an assumption in 2013. In 2015, shame.am wrote<\/a> about yet another gay parade.<\/p>\n
Manipulative news about a gay pride parade keeps on appearing regularly in the media, and LGBT people\u2019s rights are still the subject of speculations.<\/p>\n
Karine Ghazaryan<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On April 5, for the first time in parliamentary hearings, a transgender woman delivered a speech from the podium of the National Assembly. A number of false stories followed the speech. The topic of mushroom websites During the hearings on the topic of \u201cNational Human Rights Agenda: United Nations Universal Periodic Review,\u201d Chairperson of Read the full article…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11484","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-verified","author_posts-karine-ghazaryan"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/media.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}