‘Ukrainians being deported from the Netherlands?’ — Examining a controversial headline

April 28, 2028, a video titled “Ukrainian refugees are being deported from the Netherlands!” was posted on the YouTube channel CTVBY. This video has garnered over 500,000 views. Its content was as follows:

A court in the Netherlands has allowed the deportation of 1700 refugees from Ukraine. According to Deutsche Welle, this decision was made by the State Council in The Hague. It concerns about 1700 third-country nationals who were living in Ukraine as of February 24, 2022, and fled from there because of the war. Many of them are citizens of Algeria, Turkey, and Pakistan who were working or studying in Ukraine. In total, there are currently about 118,000 Ukrainian refugees in the Netherlands.

Our verdict based on the analyses conducted:

Verdict: Incorrect

Reasons:

• The thesis or statement is completely false: information from multiple sources or opinions of several experts in the specific field contradict it.
• Cause-and-effect relationships and connections clearly do not exist as claimed.
• When quoting, substantial parts are omitted, rearranged, changed, or incorrectly translated from a foreign language, resulting in a fundamental change in the meaning of what was said.
• The event occurred substantially differently than claimed.

Fact-checking rating scale

Full video:

Manipulation (FIMI/DIMI):

• Creating a false impression:

  • The headline “Ukrainian refugees are being deported from the Netherlands!” creates the impression that the Dutch authorities intend to deport Ukrainian citizens, which is not true.

  • In reality, the issue is not about Ukrainian refugees, but about third-country nationals (from Algeria, Turkey, Pakistan, etc.) who were in Ukraine before the war and fled after February 24, 2022.

• Exploitation of emotions and distortion of reality:

  • The use of the term “Ukrainian refugees” in the headline is aimed at enhancing the emotional reaction of the audience and creating a false perception of the situation related to discrimination against Ukrainians.

✅ Fact-checking the headline:

The headline contains clear signs of manipulation and disinformation (DIMI):

• Disinformation (DIMI): ✅ Present (creating a false image of the event and emotionally manipulating the audience).

• Fact-checking: ❌ The claim in the headline is completely false and does not correspond to the actual situation.

Let’s analyze the disinformation narratives and conduct a semantic analysis: