On December 5, 2019, web site batumeli.cc published an information about the release of Vazha Gaprindashvili with following title “Good news has been spread at the moment: doctor Vazha Gaprindashvili will be at home by tonight – You cannot imagine who released the doctor.” The material bases on Nino Burjanadze, however Burjanadze was mentioned in the article not as a leader of the “Democratic Movement – United Georgia”, but as a leader of the “United Opposition”. His daughter, Irina Gaprindashvili, did not confirm the information about the release of Vazha Gaprindashvili and told Interpressnews agency that disseminated information was false.
Batumeli.cc is a clickbait site, which spreads false information by imitating the name of edition “Batumelebi” and makes money according to the amount of clicks. The yellow headlines of the information placed on the site and the advertisements containing pseudoscience and related to Russian bandstand stories point to this fact. Batumeli.cc was created 9 days ago, on 26 November 2019 and currently, there are 60 publications put up on the site. The site has no contact information.
Yet another clickbait site, baxva.ge, that calls himself the “informational site”, published the identical information with identical title about the release of Vazha Gaprindashvili. Russian-language advertisements placed on the site are identical to batumeli.cc.
False information about the release of Vazha Gaprindashvili based on Nino Burjanadze was also disseminated by itar.ge site, which was created on October 27, 2018. This site writes mostly about the yellow stories, related to Georgian and Russian bandstand and also about the unverified “inventions”.
Batumeli.cc’s link has more than 50 thousand interactions on Facebook and is shared in a spam group “საგიჟეთი (Madhouse)”, as well as in the group “ გავერთიანდეთ მტრის წინააღმდეგ და მიშასეული წინსვლის დასაბრუნებლად (Let us join together against the enemy and for returning Misha’s time progress!)”. The link has been also shared by Facebook page “Natia’s world” (“ნ10ას სამყარო”).
As for the baxva.ge’s link, is has up to 3 thousand interactions and is shared in a group named “კულინარია (Culinary)”.
The page “იცით თუ არა, რომ (Do you know, that)” has shared Itar.ge’s link about Vazha Gaprindashvili on Facebook.
