Month: January 2021

North Macedonia Threatens to Block Telegram Over Pornographic Picture Sharers

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

North Macedonia’s authorities on Thursday threatened to block the messaging app Telegram over the activities of a group of more than 7,000 users who have been sharing and exchanging explicit pictures and videos of girls – some of whom are underage.

Some users even wrote the names and locations of the girls. Others have shared photoshopped images taken from their Instagram profiles.

Prime Minister Zoran Zaev said the authorities would not hesitate to block Telegram if they had to – and if the messaging app didn’t permanently close this and similar groups.

“If the Telegram application does not close Public Room, where pornographic and private content is shared by our citizens, as well as child pornography, we will consider the option of blocking or restricting the use of this application in North Macedonia,” Zaev wrote in a Facebook post.

The group, called Public Room, was first discovered in January 2020. The authorities then said that they had found the organisers and had dealt with the matter.

However, a year later, the group has re-emerged, sparking a heated debate in North Macedonia over police inaction.

Several victims whose pictures and phone numbers were hacked and used have complained about what happened to them – and about what they see as lack of action of the part of the authorities in preventing it.

“I started receiving messages and calls on my cell phone, Viber, WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram,” one 28-year-old victim, Ana, recalled in an Instagram post.

“I didn’t know what was happening or where it was coming from. The next day, I received a screenshot of my picture, which was not only posted in Public Room but shared elsewhere. I didn’t know what to do. I panicked, I was scared, I’d never experienced anything like that,” she added.

But the woman said that when she told the police about what happened, they told her they couldn’t do much about it, since she wasn’t a minor.

North Macedonia’s Minister of Interior, Oliver Spasovski, said on Thursday that the police had arrested four people in connection with the revived group and had launched a full-scale investigation.

“We have identified more people who will be detained in the coming period, so we can reach those who created this group, and also those that are abusing personal data within the group. We are working on this intensively with the Public Prosecutor,” Spasovski told the media.

However, following closure of the group on Thursday, there have been reports that some of its users are opening new groups where they continue the same practices.

Prime Minister Zaev said users of this and similar groups needed to heed a final warning.

“I want to send a message to all our citizens who are sharing pictures and content in that group [Public Room] … to stop what they are doing that and leave the group,” said Zaev on Facebook.

“At the end of the day, we will get the data, you will be charged and you will be held accountable for what you do,” he concluded.

Online Impersonation is a Crime, Romanian Court Rules

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Romania’s High Court of Cassation and Justice ruled on Tuesday that pretending to be someone else on Facebook is an offence punishable under the country’s criminal law.

The ruling arose from the case of a man sentenced to three years and eight months in prison for blackmail, digital fraud and breach of privacy for posting intimate images of his ex-girlfriend on a social network and opening pornography site accounts in her name.

According to the indictment, the man created the false social network account after threatening his former girlfriend in December 2018 that he would publish several videos of them having sex, as well as pictures in which she appeared naked, if she did not resume the relationship with him.

The case reached the High Court after the Court of Appeal in the Transylvanian city of Brasov in central Romania asked for its opinion about whether “opening and using an account on a social network opened to the public” to publish real “information, photographs, video images, etc.” could be considered digital fraud as defined by article 325 of the criminal code.

The High Court concluded that “opening and using an account on a social network open to the public, using as a username the name of another person and introducing real personal data that allows for that person’s identification” meets the requirements to be considered as digital fraud.

The Brasov court referred the case to the High Court because other Romanian courts had previously reached different and contradictory conclusions in similar cases.

Fakebooks in Hungary and Poland

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Poland and Hungary have seen the launch recently of locally developed versions of Facebook, as criticism of the US social media giants grows amid allegations of censorship and the silencing of conservative voices.

The creators behind Hundub in Hungary and Albicla in Poland both cite the dominance of the US social media companies and concern over their impact on free speech as reasons for their launch – a topic which has gained prominence since Facebook, Twitter and Instagram banned Donald Trump for his role in mobilising crowds that stormed the Capitol in Washington DC on January 6. It is notable that both of the new platforms hail from countries with nationalist-populist governments, whose supporters often rail against the power of the major social media platforms and their managers’ alleged anti-conservative bias.

Albicla’s connection to the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is explicit. Right-wing activists affiliated with the PiS-friendly weekly Gazeta Polska are behind Albicla, whose name is as obscure to Poles as it is to the international reader, although Ryszard Kapuscinski from the Gazeta Polska team claims it is an amalgamation of the Latin phrase albus aquila, meaning “white eagle”, a Polish national symbol.

The activists say Albicla is a response to the “censorship” of conservative voices by the global internet giants. “We have disturbed the powerful interests and breached the walls of the ideological front that is pushing conservative thinking to the sidelines,” Tomasz Sakiewicz, editor-in-chief of Gazeta Polska, wrote on Thursday, the day after the new portal was launched.

“Not all the functionalities are ready because we wanted to launch the portal in the last hour of the rule of the leader of the free world,” Sakiewicz continued, referring to Trump’s last day in office on January 20. “It is now up to us to ensure this world continues to be free, particularly online.”

Busy bees

The origins of Hundub – forged from the words “Hungarian” and “dub”, which also means “beehive” in ancient Hungarian – are less clear. Until recently, Hundub was owned by Murmurati Ltd, an offshore company registered in Belize, but it pulled out last week and Hundub’s founder, Csaba Pal, announced it would be crowdfunded from now on.

The December 6 launch of Hundub received little attention until the government-loyal Magyar Nemzet began acclaiming it as a truly Hungarian and censorship-free alternative to Facebook, which, the paper argues, treats Hungarian government politicians unfairly. Prime Minister Viktor Orban was one of the first politicians to sign up to Hundub, but all political parties have rushed to register, starting with the liberal-centrist Momentum, the party most favoured by young people.

Pal – a previously unknown entrepreneur from the eastern Hungarian city of Debrecen – said his goal was to launch a social media platform that supports free speech, from both the left and right, and is free from political censorship. “The social media giants have grown too big and there must be an alternative to them,” Pal told Magyar Nemzet, accusing the US tech company of deleting the accounts of thousands of Hungarians without reason.

While it’s unclear whether there is any government involvement in Hundub, its launch is proving handy for the prime minister’s ruling Fidesz party in its fight against the US tech giants. Judit Varga, the combative justice minister, regularly lashes out at Facebook and Twitter, accusing them of limiting right-wing, conservative and Christian views. Only last week, she consulted with the president of the Competition Authority and convened an extraordinary meeting of the Digital Freedom Committee to discuss possible responses to the “recent abuses by the tech giants”.


Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki (L) and the chief editor of Gazeta Polska Tomasz Sakiewicz (R). Photo: EPA/EFE LAJOS SOOS

Future of Farcebooks

Unfortunately for the Polish and Hungarian governments and their supporters, rarely have such technology ventures succeeded.

Eline Chivot, a former senior policy analyst at the Center for Data Innovation, said government-backed ideas such as the recent “French Airbnb” are destined to fail from a lack of credibility, because they are based “on politically biased motives and a misguided application of industrial policy, [and] seek to dominate a market that is no longer up for grabs”.

Indeed, Albicla became the butt of jokes immediately upon its launch as users pointed out the numerous security and functionality flaws. Among them, some of the regulations of the new website were apparently copy-pasted from Facebook, as they included hyperlinks to Mark Zuckerberg’s site; more concerning, it was possible to download the entire database of users the day after launch.

Trolls immediately took advantage of the site’s shortcomings to ridicule it, with countless fake accounts set up for Pope John Paul II, Trump and PiS politicians. Despite it being set up as an “anti-censorship” space, many users have complained of being blocked for unclear reasons in the few days since launch.

“Albicla is an ad hoc initiative by the Polish supporters of Trumpism in direct reaction to the banning of Trump from social media platforms: it’s equivalent to right-wing radicals in the US moving to Parler and other such platforms,” Rafal Pankowski, head of the Warsaw-based “Never Again” anti-fascist organisation, told BIRN.

Pankowski points out there have been similar initiatives before, including stabs at creating a “Polish Facebook”, that were unsuccessful, though there exists a local alternative to YouTube, wRealu24, which the expert describes as “virulently anti-Semitic and homophobic” and whose popularity cannot be ignored.

Likewise, Hundub has been roundly mocked. Critics point out it is just a simplified version of Facebook that looks rather embarrassing in technological and layout terms. It has the same features as Facebook – you can meet friends, share content, upload photos and videos, and, as an extra feature, there is also a blog-format where you can publish your own stories uncensored. Even the buttons are similar to those Facebook uses.

Hvg.hu recalls that Hungarians actually had their own highly successful pre-Facebook called iWiW (an abbreviation of “International Who Is Who”), which was launched in 2002 and became the most popular website in Hungary between 2005 and 2010 with over 4.5 million registered users. Alas, competition from Facebook forced it to close in 2014.

It is unlikely that Hundub will be able to challenge Facebook’s dominance, but media expert Agnes Urban from Mérték Research said in an interview that Hundub could be used by Orban’s Fidesz party to rally supporters before the 2022 election and create an enthusiastic community of voters.

Founder Csaba Pal also explained that his aim is to create a social media platform for all Hungarians, meaning ‘Greater Hungary’ with its ethnic brethren in parts of Serbia, Romania, Ukraine and Slovakia.

Hungarian politicians, from left and right, are very active on Facebook and, to a lesser extent, on Twitter. Prime Minister Orban, initially wary of digital technology, now leads with over 1.1 million followers on Facebook and has even chosen to announce a number of policy measures during the pandemic on his page.

Justice Minister Varga and Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, notwithstanding their frequent outbursts, are both avid users of Facebook. It is not known whether any of their Facebook activity has been censored or banned; the business news site Portfolio recalls that the only political party to have been banned is the far-right Mi Hazánk party, whose leader, Laszlo Torockai, also had his account deleted. No doubt they will able to start afresh on Hundub.

Albicla also stands to benefit from its close connections to the Polish government, which since coming to power in 2015 has bolstered the pro-government media via mass advertising by state-controlled companies.

According to research conducted by Kantar this summer, the 16 state companies and institutions analysed by the consulting firm increased their advertising budgets to Gazeta Polska by 79 per cent between 2019 and 2020 – a period during which most media have lost advertising due to the pandemic. Gazeta Poska Codziennie, a daily affiliated with the same trust, has seen similar gains. And the foundation of Gazeta Polska editor-in-chief Tomasz Sakiewicz has also benefitted from state funds to the tune of millions of zloty.

By contrast, since PiS came to power, the media critical of the government, such as Gazeta Wyborcza, have seen their revenues from state advertising slashed.

In 2019, Gazeta Polska made international headlines when it distributed “LGBT-free zone” stickers with the magazine, in a period when PiS counsellors across Poland were starting to push for the passing of resolutions declaring towns “zones free of LGBT ideology”.

Despite the hiccups at launch, Albicla was immediately endorsed by high-level members of the government, including Piotr Glinski, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, and Sebastian Kaleta, a secretary of state at the Ministry of Justice.

Kaleta is also the man in charge of a new draft law on the protection of freedom of speech online, announced in December by the Justice Ministry, which would prevent social media companies from being able to remove posts or block accounts unless the content is in breach of Polish law.

The International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH), an Amsterdam-based foundation set up to combat discrimination online, has argued that “over-zealous” policing of harmful speech is not an issue in Poland and that the new Polish law might mean, for example, that online attacks against the LGBT community – which are not covered by national hate speech legislation – might go unpunished.

And where might those online attacks against the LGBT community be disseminated? Albicla, perhaps.

Serbia Eyes Artificial Intelligence in Courts, but Experts See Dangers

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The wheels of justice in Serbia sorely need speeding up. But when President Aleksandar Vucic told reporters last month that it would be “very important” to introduce artificial intelligence into the courts, not everyone was reassured.

Vucic’s remark about ‘predictive justice’ and the advent of “new, real and important changes” came in the context of a year-end press conference covering the full gamut of government policy, so he did not dwell on the details.

Now some digital rights activists and legal experts are sounding the alarm about the need to put the issue to full public debate, after an extensive Chinese-built network of surveillance cameras was rolled out in the capital, Belgrade, in 2019 to the surprise of unaware residents.

From identifying likely re-offenders to catching welfare fraudsters, predictive justice is a fast-growing phenomenon, alarming rights organisations that warn that such software can encourage racial profiling and discrimination and threaten privacy and freedom of expression.

Lawyer Djordje Krivokapic, co-founder of the Belgrade-based digital rights NGO SHARE Foundation, said AI has uses in courts in terms of case-management, automation and assistance in decision-making. But its introduction needs to be properly debated, he said.

“This represents a serious change in our society and some public debate and public discussion on this issue in general should be initiated regardless of the level at which it is discussed – except perhaps at the first level when some types of predictive algorithms are used in case-management to speed up the justice system and make it more efficient,” Krivokapic told BIRN.

He warned of the potential for discrimination. “Artificial intelligence and machine-learning algorithms have a lot of specifics that can lead to increased discrimination – or new forms of discrimination – and special attention must be paid to this.”

The justice ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Uses and abuses

Serbia is already laying the ground for the use of AI in its public sector. In December 2019, the government adopted a strategy to develop the field over the period 2020-2025 and an Action Plan to enact the strategy was passed in June 2020.

Under the plan, the government will establish an Artificial Intelligence Council in the first quarter of this year. Neither document, however, discusses in detail the use of AI in the Serbian court system, which is notoriously slow and prone to political interference.

Besides a legislative framework, Serbia has also begun to automate case-storage and institutional communication in the judiciary.

Lawyer Milena Vasic from the Lawyers’ Committee for Human Rights-YUCOM, said AI was becoming “a kind of inevitability in almost all areas of life”, and criminal justice could not be an exception.

“In particular, we should keep in mind simpler cases, such as, for example, we now have thousands of lawsuits against banks for loan processing costs that have practically buried the judiciary, or mass lawsuits that most often occur due to a mistake by the state,” Vasic told BIRN.

“Certainly, the use of artificial intelligence could make it easier to manage such cases, but since it is software, we should also talk about potential abuses or artificially raising the number of resolved cases.”

Ana Toskic Cvetinovic, executive director of the NGO Partners for Democratic Change Serbia, also warned of potential issues around discrimination of marginalised groups.

“Regarding the use of AI in the judiciary, it raises a number of other issues such as the impact on access to justice and the right to a fair trial, or free judicial conviction, even when AI is used to support decision-making, and especially if it is AI that would possibly replace judges,” Toskic Cvetinovic told BIRN.

Some forms of predictive justice simply cannot yet be applied in Serbia, YUCOM’s Vasic said.

“In our law, case law is still not a formal source of law and we have a lot of problems with harmonisation of case law,” she said. “What is crucial, however, is to harmonise the position on case law at the ‘human’ level before resolving cases with new methods involving artificial intelligence.”

“Such systems can be easily imagined in countries of the common law system,” Vasic noted, but “even there they suffer serious criticism for violating the right of citizens to a fair trial and are still in the so-called test phase.”

Lack of transparency


Part of map of smart cameras in Belgrade, view on city center. Screenshot: hiljade.kamera.rs 

Serbia is already pursuing greater automation, for example in terms of parking in Belgrade.

In August last year, authorities went live with a system named ‘Falcon Eye’ involving 20 specialised cars equipped with cameras that can identify improperly parked cars and take photos, resulting in fines for the registered owners sent by post. Then there’s the Chinese ‘Safe City’ network of surveillance cameras with the potential for licence plate recognition and facial recognition.

There has little or no public debate about the use of such technology, the introduction of which has been criticised as lacking transparency.

Toskic Cvetinovic warned that the “flaws” of AI would be magnified in Serbia given the country’s poor record of protecting human rights.

“In addition, the protection of citizens’ privacy has so far not been in focus when planning or implementing projects that involve mass processing of personal data,” Toskic Cvetinovic told BIRN.

“What worries me most is the fact that the most flagrant violations of this right came from institutions that have public functions, so the trust in new similar projects has been shaken, and with good reason.”

“There is no transparency in decision-making, nor any wider social discussion about whether we need such projects and what are their advantages and what are the possible consequences. A special question is – who manages these systems? How they are protected? Can be abused, etc?”

Krivokapic of SHARE Foundation said Serbia does not have the proper means of monitoring how such technology is used.

“We don’t have state bodies… that do any monitoring of the success in implementing the information system in the public sector, and in general all those tools that are procured, paid for and so on. There is no monitoring,” he said.

Open Call for Digital Rights Programme for Journalists

Posted on by BIRD

Through BIRN’s new “Digital Rights Programme for Journalists“ we are looking for journalists interested in fast-evolving digitalisation processes and their impact on democracy, society and lives in Central and Southeastern Europe, particularly the following:

  • The use of the algorithms
  • The forces fuelling hate speech and discrimination in the digital environment and their implications
  • Digital security and phishing campaigns
  • Privacy and personal data breaches and (non)existing protection mechanisms
  • Surveillance policy and use of technology by authoritarian regimes
  • Accountability of the major Internet platforms and online safety of users
  • Information security breaches
  • Arrests for social media posts and pressure applied over online expression and activities
  • Blocking and filtering of content
  • Holding intermediaries liable
  • Manipulation and propaganda in the digital environment
  • Machine learning algorithms and algorithmic decision-making processes
  • 5G technology in the region
  • Cryptocurrencies/blockchains in the world of financial crime
  • Social media bots and troll farms

We are offering a comprehensive, 10-month programme that includes: regular networking opportunities and meetings with actors and experts dealing with digital rights and emerging tech challenges, financial support, on-the-job mentoring and editorial sessions to produce high-quality journalism and educational sessions focused on digital security for media.

The programme aims to cover under-reported topics related to the health of the digital ecosystem and digital rights violations in Central and Southeastern Europe.

If you already have a story on your mind but you lack resources and guidance, this is the programme for you.

Each journalist will receive a bursary of 2,000 euros to support their reporting.

In order to apply for the programme, use the application form attached below to send us a proposal for a regional investigative story.

As part of our Reporting Democracy platform, BIRN’s “Digital Rights Programme for Journalists” will enable media workers to cover under-reported topics relating to growing digital rights challenges in the region.  The stories produced will be published on BIRN’s flagship website Balkan Insight, and by prominent European, regional and international media outlets. The programme is supported by European Artificial Intelligence Fund and ERSTE Foundation.

The call is open until February, 21, 2021.

Who can apply?

The programme is open to all journalists who believe they have a good story on an under-reported topic concerning the health of the digital ecosystem in Central and Southeastern Europe. We also welcome applications from staff reporters from local and national media who wish to co-publish the story with us.

BIRN is committed to gender diversity and freedom from prejudice on any grounds.

Story requirements

o The story must deal with at least one of the topics listed above

o The story must be relevant to Central and Southeastern Europe and must cover at least two countries in the region

o We are looking for in-depth, investigative stories

o The story should be around 2,000 words long

o Each selected story must be published within eight months of receipt of the first installment of the bursary.

How to apply?

Send us your story proposal using the story grant form, downloadable here.

Please send the completed form together with a signed declaration and your CV to applications@birn.eu.com no later than February 21, 2021.

Download the Story Grant Form

Download the Declaration

BIRN Launches Online Community to Connect Journalists

Posted on by BIRD

The Balkan Investigative Reporting Network launched a new cross-border journalism platform on Wednesday, aiming to connect more than 1,000 journalists who took part in BIRN’s programmes as fellows, trainees and grantees, as well as other journalists reporting on South-East and Central Europe.

BIRD Community offers a unique secure online environment in which to exchange information, as well as a comprehensive database and a rich contacts directory of experts across the Western Balkans.

The idea was the result of more than 15 years of experience in connecting journalists across the Balkans and beyond to produce complex regional analyses and cross-border investigations, as well as BIRN’s experience in providing comprehensive training in investigative reporting. 

The aim of BIRD Community is to make journalistic work much easier and take journalistic networking to the next level. By joining BIRD Community, journalists will get:

  • A secure environment in which they can easily reach out to BIRN’s team members and other colleagues from our alumni network across South-East and Central Europe.
  • Free access to BIRD Source, an easily searchable and comprehensive database with thousands of documents collected by BIRN over the years and exclusive data scraped from public registries and state institutions’ websites as well as information obtained through Freedom of Information requests. BIRD Source also offers journalists the opportunity to share their own documents and leaks, and has a tool that allows them to sketch a diagram online to summarise investigative findings with other journalists.
  • Access to BIRD Directory, with around 1,400 names and contacts of experts from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.
  • Access to Forum in which journalists can easily communicate with other members, privately or publicly.
  • The opportunity to send requests for help, information and advice from other journalists by posting them in the Bulletin Board section. The responses from other members can be made visible to all users or can be kept private.
  • Updates on grants and training opportunities. 

Members can create public or private topics in the Forum section – the former will be visible to all members, allowing any of them to join the discussion, while with the latter, the creator can choose which members will be able to participate. 

The Bulletin Board section is a place to share opportunities with others, ask for help, swap contacts or find a journalist who specialises in a particular topic. In the Bulletin Board section, members can leave posts which can either be private or be seen by all other members. 

Once members subscribe to the posts and topics they want to follow on the Forum and Bulletin Board, they will receive an email each time there is an updates. 

BIRD Community is part of a broader platform that BIRN introduced last year, BIRN Investigative Resource Desk (BIRD) – an innovative interactive platform created for professional and citizen journalists who want to keep up-to-date with the fast-changing world of technology without sacrificing their ethics or the standards of professional journalism.

Serbia Bans Sale of Shirts Celebrating Srebrenica Massacres

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Serbia’s Market Inspectorate on Friday banned the Belgrade-based 011 Shop from selling and advertising sweatshirts and T-shirts with a slogan praising the 1995 Srebrenica massacres, which its website had been promoting online.

The Trade Ministry said that a criminal complaint had also been filed to the Serbian prosecution accusing the company of “the advertising of products that incite national, religious and racial hatred”.

The garments featured the slogan “Noz, Zica” (“Knife, Wire”) – a reference to a popular Serbian football hooligan chant at matches, “Knife, Wire, Srebrenica”, which celebrates the mass killings of Bosniaks by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995.

“The advertising and sale of such products not only violates the law on advertising and the criminal code, but is in direct conflict with the constitution of Serbia, because it encourages the incitement of national, religious and racial hatred, which is explicitly prohibited,” said the secretary of state at the Trade Ministry, Uros Kandic.

Kandic said that a criminal complaint against the online retailer had been filed to the Prosecutor’s Office for High-Tech Crime.

Shop 011 apologised for the incident on its Facebook page, claiming that the message on the garments had been “misinterpreted” and “taken out of context”, and that they had been withdrawn from sale.

“It was not our intention to spread any kind of hatred or bigotry towards anyone,” the shop’s statement said.

Its website, registered to the Belgrade-based company Souvenir Shop, went offline on Friday morning.

Shop 011 advertises its garments as “Serbian street wear” for men, women and children. Some items also celebrate the Serbian nationalist Chetnik Movement and its World War II-era leader Dragoljub Mihajlovic, as well as notorious 1990s paramilitary leader Zeljko Raznatovic, alias Arkan.

The company also has retail shops at locations in Belgrade.

Bosnian Serb forces killed some 8,000 Bosniak men and boys after seizing the town of Srebrenica in eastern Bosnia in July 1995, in a series of massacres that international courts have classified as genocide.

Poland Pushes Law to Limit ‘Censorship’ by Internet Giants

Posted on by BIRD

Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro announced on December 17 the government has prepared a draft law on the protection of freedom of speech online, arguing that, “There cannot be any censorship of the freedom of speech – freedom of speech and debate is the essence of democracy.”

The issue of online censorship has gained traction over the last few days after the biggest global social media platforms removed or suspended the accounts of US President Donald Trump as a consequence of his using those platforms to mobilise supporters to challenge the legitimate result of the presidential election and march on the Capitol on January 6, which ended with five fatalities. The restrictions have caused controversy around the world, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel describing Trump’s ban from Twitter as “problematic”.

On Tuesday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki appeared to jump on the bandwagon by condemning the unbridled power of the internet giants. “The censorship of freedom of speech, the domain of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, is returning today in the form of a new, commercial mechanism fighting against those who think differently,” Morawiecki wrote in a Facebook post on January 12.

The Polish government’s condemnation of the events in Washington has been softer than that of other EU states, with President Andrzej Duda calling them “an internal matter for the United States”.

According to Poland’s Ministry of Justice, the draft law will state that social media companies cannot remove posts or block accounts unless the content is in breach of Polish law. If that happens, the new law states that users will have the right to file a complaint with the social media company, which will then have 48 hours to deal with the request.

The possibility to then appeal the decision of the social media companies before a newly created special court – the Court Defending the Freedom of Speech – will also be introduced.

Digital rights groups active in Poland stress that it is premature to comment on the contents of the Polish draft law before it is made public.

“Media accounts speak about some solutions to address the problem of the so-called private censorship – the redundant, arbitrary removal of content by social media platforms – and about facilitating access to the justice system in case of conflicts with global internet companies,” Dorota Glowacka, from the digital rights group Panoptykon, told BIRN. “The EU draft regulation Digital Services Act announced in December is going in the same direction and generally we consider this direction to be correct.”

The Polish draft law was introduced to the public just two days after the European Commission presented its proposals for two continent-wide regulation packages: the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, both of which introduce new rules for internet giants operating in the EU.

The proposed Digital Services Act – if approved – would require platforms to do more to limit the spread of illegal content, while at the same time regulate the manner in which internet platforms can block users or remove content. A decision to ban or block content or a user would have to be made in a more transparent manner, thereby reducing arbitrariness. The platforms will also have to inform users about the reasons for the ban and users will have the ability to present counter-arguments. An independent system of supervision over the final decisions of the platforms will also be introduced.

Moldova’s Cyber Crime Defences Questioned After DarkNet Sting

Posted on by BIRD

Security experts in Moldova are raising questions about the resilience of the country’s cyber defences after a massive operation at the European level, to which Moldova contributed, uncovered and closed the biggest DarkNet website selling drugs, stolen credit card data and malware.

German authorities dismantled DarkMarket, which was hosted by DarkNet, on Tuesday. Prosecutors from Koblenz said that “more than 20 servers from Moldova and Ukraine” had been confiscated and shut during the international police operation.

According to investigators, DarkMarket was “without a doubt, the largest market in the world on DarkNet”. They say the online platform included over 500,000 users and over 2,400 sellers.

“Moldova does not entirely control its territory where certain criminal groups covered by influential factors from Moldova and Russia are operating,” retired colonel Rosian Vasiloi observed to BIRN.

“In this sense, the authorities show their weakness because we have all the necessary levers to intervene in this regard with special investigation activity and criminal investigations – but somehow we don’t,” the military and security specialist told BIRN.

The former border police chief also stressed that whikle Moldova is doing well on paper in laws and security strategies, it has major difficulties implementing them. He also urged more transparency on such matters, as Moldovan authorities have stayed largely quiet so far on this problem.

Vasiloi said Moldova should cooperate more with Western investigative bodies and be more proactive in tackling such phenomena, not only when it is asked to. “We have specific commitments regarding this in the context of implementing the Association Agreement with the European Union,” he noted.

In total, at least 320,000 transactions were made on the illegal platform with Bitcoin and Monero cryptocurrencies, and the total value of the transactions could amount to 140 million euros, authorities have said.

DarkMarket was “used mainly for the sale of drugs of all kinds” but also sold “counterfeit coins, stolen or counterfeit credit card data, anonymous SIM cards’ or computer viruses”, German prosecutors stated.

A 34-year-old Australian allegedly running DarkMarket was arrested this weekend on the German-Danish border and is in pre-trial detention.

Authorities worldwide, including the FBI, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and police in countries such as the UK, Denmark, Ukraine and Moldova contributed to the investigation under EU coordination.

Legendary Slovenian Student Radio Threatened With Loss of Funding

Posted on by BIRD

Following news that Slovenian Radio Student will lose its funding from the Student Organisation of the University of Ljubljana, SOU, many NGOs, faculties, unions, local and international press freedom watchdog organizations have voiced their support for “one of Europe’s oldest and strongest non-commercial, alternative radio stations”.

Its editor-in-chief Matjaz Zorec told BIRN that relations between the student organisation and Radio Student have been bad for years and that everything worsened after the recent election of the main student body. Its session, held at the end of last year, then proposed to allocate the radio “zero euros”.

“Now there is a public alarm… Our request is not that complicated, 120,000 euros, that’s a little more than 4 per cent of their budget,” Zorec said.

According to Radio Student, the reason for the latest budget cut is critical reporting on the SOU structure and management.

While support from the SOU represents less than a fourth of radio’s total funding, its withdrawal would jeopardise the whole funding structure which derives from the co-funding of various national and European projects.

“We are financed through Slovenian and European projects, but we cannot do these projects without this money [from SOU]. If we do not have that money, it is a radical cut,” Zorec said.

SOU, on the other hand, says the real problem is a constant reduction of funds for the entire student organisation. In 2010, the SOU’s financial plan foresaw revenue of 7.5 million euros, dropping to only 2.9 million in 2021, it said on January 6.

In another press release, on Monday, the organization stated that “reduction of funds is not related to the reporting of Radio Student but only to the reduction of funds available to SOU”, adding that it still supports “free and democratic media reporting”.

It said it was “disturbing” that Radio Student “creates public pressure and publicly slanders individuals before trying to resolve the issue of founding within the organisation”.

It said the final version of 2021 SOU’s financial plan will be adopted on Thursday, and some amendments are possible. Zorec says SOU offered some amounts to Radio Student in the meantime, but that they are not enough.

On Tuesday, meanwhile, the European Federation of Journalists, EFJ, joined its affiliates in Slovenia in condemning the SOU’s withdrawal of funds, and supporting Radio Student’s calls.

Established in 1969, Radio Student is one of Europe’s oldest and strongest non-commercial radio stations, offering diverse and dedicated programme activities, covering current political, social and cultural phenomena.

More than 300 organizations and more than 1,000 individuals have signed a petition supporting Radio Student. Most Slovenian MEPs also reacted and warned that depriving the radio station of funds would be in contradiction with EU media plurality goals and efforts.

A number of local and international press freedom watchdog organisations have accused the Slovenian government led by right-wing Prime Minister Janez Jansa of using the pandemic to restrict media freedoms and make often personal attacks on journalists.

Although Zorec says that the government is not directly involved in the problem of radio financing, he says that “such a climate has developed that to some people [limiting media freedom] seems normal”.

“The media were attacked in Slovenia, the vast majority of the public is against it,” he concluded.

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