January 2019

Facebook Launches Content Review Centre in Bulgaria

Posted on January 29, 2019January 26, 2023 by BIRD

The largest global social media network, Facebook, is launching a content review centre in Sofia, Bulgaria, this week.

The news, first announced by Capital weekly, was confirmed to BIRN by the Head of Corporate Communications for Central and Eastern Europe of the company, Jan Sciegienny, on Tuesday.

“Today, we are announcing the opening of a new content review center in Sofia in partnership with TELUS International – a leading global operations service provider for Community Care Solution”, he wrote in an email response to BIRN’s inquiry.

The center aims to recruit 150 people within one year. They will be responsible for supporting content review in multiple languages, including Turkish, Kazakh, Georgian and Russian.

The reviewers will be looking at potentially violating material that has been flagged by the users of the platform and the artificial intelligence technology, employed by the company to detect harmful content.

“We are investing heavily in more people and better technology to make sure that Facebook is both a safe place and somewhere people can freely discuss different points of view,” Sciegienny added.

The company moved on to expand its safety and security team as part of a strategy to contain rising public criticism and concerns about flaws in its data protection mechanisms that lead to alleged usage of the platform to sway key votes, including the Brexit referendum in the UK and the last US Presidential elections.

Over the past year, the content reviewers and safety specialists employed by the company doubled, to 30,000 people, the company announced.

Additionally, Facebook announced on Monday it is expanding its political advertising transparency policies in the run-up to the European Parliament elections and is opening Rapid Response offices in Dublin and Singapore to “tackle misinformation in advance”.

Fears of Russian meddling in key elections sparked calls from EU leaders, notably French President Emmanuel Macron, for an increased regulatory role of the EU and member states over the internet.

On Monday, Facebook’s head of global public relations and ex-deputy PM of Great Britain Nick Clegg spoke at an invitation-only event in Brussels, addressing these concerns.

“There is a clear role here for the EU to demonstrate a middle path — a model that combines the dynamism of Silicon Valley with the regulatory rigor of Brussels,” he said, quoted by Politico.

Bosnia Blows Millions of Euros on Official Limos

Posted on January 18, 2019January 26, 2023 by BIRD

Bosnian state institutions and companies last year launched tenders for official vehicles worth more than 93 million Bosnian marks – equal to about 46 million euros.

The total value of the tenders actually completed in 2018 was over 19 million euros and bought some 926 vehicles, data from the BIRN BiH database indicate.

This amount includes all vehicles procured last year, including trucks, ambulances and police cars.

Just over 10.6 million KM – 5 million euros – was spent on purchasing 329 official limousines whose price averaged 32,000 KM, about 16,000 euros.

The Medical Faculty in Mostar, in southwest Bosnia, bought the most expensive passenger car. Purchased from the MRM Company from Ljubuski, it cost close to 100,000 KM, including tax. The faculty director, Milanko Bevanda, did not respond to BIRN’s inquiry concerning this procurement by the time of publication.

Mostar University and its members launched eight tenders worth more than 420,000 KM during 2018.

The MRM Company won two of those tenders as the only bidder. The same company won most tenders in Bosnia during 2018, and earned 5.3 million KM through 25 tenders.

MRM from Ljubuski was the only bidder in as many as 96 per cent of the open tenders, or lots, that it won during 2018. There was only one bidder in 87 per cent of all the tenders completed in 2018.

Besides MRM, the biggest tenders were won by Lada Auto Banja Luka (2.6 million KM), Porsche BH Sarajevo (2.1 million KM), Guma M Mostar (1.9 million KM) and Autokomerc V.S. Banja Luka (1.6 million KM).

Only Porsche BH answered BIRN BiH’s queries by the time of publication saying that the company fully complied with procurement legislation and honoured strict internal policies.

Skoda Superb is one of the most frequently bought vehicles by Bosnian politicians. The District Heating Company from Doboj bought one last year for just over 45,000 euros – including tax, the second most expensive passenger car bought last year.

The director of District Heating, Sladjan Jovic, did not respond fully to BIRN BiH’s inquiry about why such an expensive vehicle was bought, who would use it, or whether they could have purchased a cheaper vehicle.

He did say, however: “The vehicle will be used as an official vehicle for the needs of the Company in accordance with the Company Work Plan and other programming and planning documents of the Company.”

BIRN BiH noted nearly 100 tenders, which make up almost 15 percent of all tenders, for providing detailed vehicle specifications or precise dimensions or features of a certain vehicle, which Public Procurement Law in Bosnia prohibits.

The procurement of 66 ambulances also started last year, while tenders for 28 of them were completed.

Just over a million euros was spent purchasing those vehicles, which was only a fifth of the total sum spent on passenger vehicles.

Used ambulances were bought through three tender procedures.

Officials sought the purchase of even fewer fire trucks – only 35. Some 6.2 million KM – about 3.1 million euros – was spent on buying 161 police vehicles last year.

The total of purchased police vehicles, fire trucks and ambulances was fewer than passenger cars, and their total price was also smaller than the total price of the passenger vehicles.

Bosnian Officials Spend 4.5 Million Euros on Vehicles

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