After more than a week of sleeping in a frigid campsite on the border between the two countries, and an attempt to cross the frontier that was repelled by pepper spray and police batons, Mohammad Faraj gave up and went to a warm hotel in the capital.
Soon after, he watched a video report on Facebook that claimed that Poland was about to open its border and that all those who wanted to enter the European Union should gather at a gas station.
Mr. Faraj, a 35-year-old ethnicKurd from Iraq, rushed back to the squalid camp he had just left, traveling 190 miles from Minsk to the gas station just in time for the opening of the border in early November that he had heard about on Facebook.
The Polish border remained closed and Mr. Faraj spent the next 10 days in what he described as a horror movie.
The European Union blamed the traumas of recent weeks on the leader of Belarus, Alexander G. Lukashenko.
Thousands of Iraqis have been given easy tourist visas by the Belarusian authorities, which has helped stoke the crisis.
Mr. Lukashenko has been given a vital assist by social media, as an unpredictable accretion to the hopes and illusions of people who have fallen prey to the empty promises of profiteers and charlatans on the internet.
The image is.
The New York Times reports that researchers say that traffickers target asylum-seekers by advertising their services on Facebook.
Some were in it for money, promising to smuggle migrants across borders for hefty fees, while others appeared to bask in the attention they received as online "influencers" for sharing information. There is no evidence to suggest that Mr. Lukashenko has a campaign to target migrants.
Mr. Faraj said that fake news on Facebook caused him and the other people in the jungle to be destroyed.
Semantic Visions, an intelligence firm that tracked social media activity related to the crisis, said activity on Facebook in Arabic and Kurdish has been "skyrocketing" since July.
Ms. Richter said that the humanitarian crisis was worsened by Facebook.
The researchers said that the people who were successful in reaching Germany via Poland and Belarus were advertised on Facebook and shared their phone numbers. The smuggler advertised daily trips from Minsk to Germany for only 20 km. The journey is not suitable for children due to the cold. Another smuggler with the Facebook user name "Visa Visa" offered trips to Germany from Poland. The smuggler said the trip would take up to 15 hours but warned against calling if you are afraid.
Despite the bitter experience of so many promises on Facebook that turned out to be false, a ripple of excitement swept across the people in the warehouse after reports on social media that it was still possible to get into Europe.
The image is.
A group of migrants are in the country.
The former math teacher in Iraqi Kurdistan who had already paid around $10,000 to travel agents in Iraq for a package tour that was supposed to get himself, his wife and young child to Europe but only got them locked up in a warehouse, was not happy with the latest offer. He gestured toward a group of people huddled on the floor, and said that the door was still not open.
Musa Hama, a Kurd from Iraq, lamented that no amount of fact-checking would prevent people from grasping at straws of hope provided by Facebook. He said that people are desperate and believe anything.
When the former Soviet republic of Belarus relaxed visa policies for certain countries, including Iraq, migrants began to come to the country in the hopes of getting into the European Union. The relaxation was meant to boost tourism at a time when most Westerners were staying away following the presidential election.
Travel companies in Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdistan Region started advertising on Facebook and other platforms about the availability of visas to Belarus, in order to make money. The traffickers used social media to promote the country as a back door to Europe.
Since July, Semantic Visions has identified dozens of Facebook groups created to share information about migration routes and used by traffickers to advertise their services. A private group titled "Migration of the powerful from Belarus to Europe" exploded from 13,600 members in early September to roughly 30,000 currently. A group called "Belarus Online" grew from 7,700 members to 23,700 during the same period. Thousands of people have joined channels dedicated to the route to Europe on Telegram.
The image is.
A migrant is in Bruzgi. Many of the asylum-seekers who are now in limbo on the border with Poland are followers of people who have shared wrong information.
Semantic Visions concluded in a recent report that social media platforms have been used as a market for smuggled goods into the European Union.
Facebook has dedicated teams to monitor and detect material related to the crisis, after changing its name to Meta. The company was working with law enforcement agencies and nongovernmental organizations to counter fake news related to migration.
The company said in an email that they don't allow ads, posts, pages or groups that facilitate or coordinate people crossing international borders. We remove this content when we are aware of it.
Even after the European migration crisis in 2015, the company still struggles to keep banned material off its platform, especially in non-English languages.
Jeroen Lenaers said that Facebook is not taking their responsibility seriously and that they see desperate people in the cold in the mud in the forest in Belarus because they believe the misinformation that was provided to them through Facebook.
It's not clear what steps Facebook has taken to deal with misleading information.
Karwan Rawanduzy is a popular figure among would-be migrants to Europe, but his online videos and other reports often promote bogus stories, like the claim that Poland would open its border in early November.
Mr. Rawanduzy's live posts on a Facebook page namedKurdisch News had more than 100,000 followers before it was disabled in November after he said a Polish politician had accused him of helping to fuel the crisis. Migrants trapped along the border sent videos to the page.
The image is.
James Hill for The New York Times was at the shelter.
Mr. Rawanduzy said he was repeating information that had been reported by German media about the pressure on Poland to open the border. He blamed Poland for the misery faced by migrants and said he was trying to help the asylum-seekers.
Mr. Rawanduzy left Iraq in 2009, two years after a suicide bombing in Erbil wounded him, and is now an immigration activist.
Mr. Faraj is angry that he followed the advice of Mr. Rawanduzy and went back to the border. He said that everyone follows him. He said that Karwan tricked them all on Facebook.
Mr. Rawanduzy said it was not for him to feel bad or guilty about people being persuaded by his posts. It is up to the Iraqi and Kurdish government to feel bad for people who want to leave.
The image is.
The border to Poland is seen from Bruzgi, Belarus. The migrants were taken to a warehouse for shelter last week.
Adam Satariano from London and Jane Arraf from Erbil, Iraq were reporting. Sangar Khaleel from Erbil, Christopher F. Schuetze from Berlin, and Masha Froliak from New York contributed to the report.
