Month: January 2023

Iranian Embassy in Tirana, Wednesday 7 September 2022. Photo: BIRN

Iranian diplomats in Tirana prepared to leave the country on Thursday after Albania’s government the day before declared them personae non grata – having accused the Islamic republic of responsibility for the big cyber-attack in July that blocked several online services.

Prime Minister Edi Rama said the Iran embassy in Albania has been notified that its staff need to leave the country within 24 hours.

Tirana-based security expert and professor Fabian Zhilla told BIRN that severing diplomatic relations with Iran was not enough; this must be coordinated with preventive measures, or the country risks facing heightened aggressiveness from Iran’s secret services.

“They have exploited weaknesses in [our] cyber security protection and now have a significant amount of documentation that they acquired during the first attack, and we do not know what that information is … whether it is classified information, which could bring instability tomorrow,” Zhilla told BIRN.

Albania has linked the attack to its hosting of around 3,000 exiled Iranians belonging to the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, MEK, an opposition group to the regime in Iran, supported by the US.

But Zhilla said that Albania’s government should talk to MEK and urge them not to use Albanian territory for any kind of media or propaganda war against the Iranian regime.

“Because this … would expose us as a country to Iran and give them a reason to strike. In this context … the agreement was to give the MEK a political shelter, but not for them to use this type of political shelter to wage war from our territory,” Zhilla added.

Another, security expert, Adrian Shtuni, based in Washington, also links the cyber-attack to the MEK. Tirana’s tough response was “the strongest public response of a state to a cyber-attack so far,” he noted.

“The primary purpose of the attack seems to have been to exert pressure for the cancellation of the annual ‘Free Iran’ conference organized by the MEK,” Shtuni told BIRN.

The conference was, in fact, cancelled in July after US embassy in Tirana warned of an unnamed security threat to the summit.

“The publication of sensitive information online can also be interpreted as a revenge against the Albanian state for the decision it took to shelter the Iranian opposition. If the aim of the attack had been financial gain, there would have been a demand for payment/tribute,” Shtuni argued.

Shtuni says that, unfortunately, cyber attacks in the 21st century are a daily reality, involving high costs and risks.

“Albania, as defined in the New Strategic Concept of NATO 2022, must improve its infrastructure, networks, and capabilities for cyber defence. This will make it more able to prevent or counter these threats more efficiently in future,” he added.

This is not the first time that Albania has seen massive leaks of personal data. Just before the April 2021 general elections, a massive database of 910,000 voters in the Tirana region that contained personal data, such as IDs, job titles and even possible political preferences, was published by the media.

Many accused the ruling Socialist Party of using state institutions to gather the personal data.

Another massive data leak occurred last December, when data detailing the salaries of around 630,000 Albanians was circulated online. Days later, another database with data of car license plates was also leaked.

In January, prosecutors arrested four people in connection with the data leaks. Two people from state institutions suspected of selling people’s personal data, and two others from private entities suspected of buying it, were arrested.

Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama. Photo by EPA-EFE/GEORGI LICOVSKI

Albania’s Prime Minister, Edi Rama, on Wednesday said Tirana was freezing diplomatic ties with Iran after he blamed the Islamic republic for a major cyber-attack in July, which blocked several online services.

Rama said the Iran embassy in Albania has been notified that its staff need to leave the country within 24 hours.

“A deep investigation brought uncontestable proof that the cyber aggression towards our country was orchestrated and sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran, which engaged four groups for the attack,” Rama said on Wednesday.

“Among them was one of the most notorious international cyber terror authors or co-authors of previous cyber-attacks against Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, United [Arab] Emirates, Kuwait and Cyprus,” Rama added.

The government’s online services were attacked on July 15, when the main servers went down, following what the authorities called “a synchronised criminal attack from abroad”.

Media outlet Top Channel then reported that Iran was behind the cyber-attack, likely sending a political message to Albania, which hosts around 3,000 exiled Iranians belonging to the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, MEK, an opposition to the current regime in Iran and strongly supported by the US.

Reports also said the attackers had demanded 30 million euros in bitcoin. Rama denied reports of blackmail on Twitter, saying that the news about the “demand for 30 million euros is completely fake” and a foreign state was behind the hackers.

Albania’s latest move comes as other governments in the region are facing similar issues.

On Tuesday, the Kosovo government announced that for two days in a row, on Monday and Tuesday, Kosovo institutions had faced temporary interruption of their internet network.

“The cyber-security team sector within the Information Security Agency in cooperation with local and foreign experts identified that the problem with internet service is a consequence of a cyber-attack,” Perparim Kryeziu, Kosovo government Spokesperson, said on Tuesday evening.

“The cyber-attack did not penetrate the infrastructure of state computers’ network because it was blocked by relevant security equipment,” he added.

“It was identified that the cyber-attack came from outside of Kosovo and targeted the IP in which several web pages of Kosovo institutions work,” he said.

He said the Information Security Agency has undertaken “concrete actions to overcome this cyber-attack and return internet service into function”

“For the moment, the situation is stable. Internet and other online services are functioning and accessible. Cyber security experts will continue to monitor the security of services and government’s systems and will take necessary measures to maintain their security,” Kryeziu said.

In neighbouring Montenegro, government and judicial websites were forced to go offline and trials delayed following massive cyber-attacks that started on August 24 and whose perpetrators remain unknown.

This is not the first time that Albanian public has faced massive leaks of personal data.

One year ago, just before the general elections in April 2021, a massive database of 910,000 voters in the Tirana region that contained personal data such as IDs, job titles and possible political preferences was published by the media.

Many accused the ruling Socialist Party of using state institutions to gather the personal data.

Other massive data leak happened last December, when data detailing the salaries of around 630,000 Albanians was circulated online. Days after, another database with data of license car plates was leaked.

In January, the Tirana Prosecution arrested four people in connection with the massive data leaks. Two people from state institutions suspected of selling people’s personal data and two others from private entities suspected of buying it were arrested.

Online threats to journalists and politicians in Serbia, Hungary

Episodes of intimidation and other online threats continue to mark several online environments. Serbia, in particular, remains at the top list of regional countries, with the highest rate of online attacks on journalists and independent media.

Along the same lines, Hungary’s digital space remains a breeding ground for hate campaigns, online attacks and other politically motivated incidents of intimidation.

A police officer stands by as cartoons from French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo are projected onto buildings in central Montpellier in France, 21 October 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE/GUILLAUME HORCAJUELO

On November 5, the mayor of Budapest’s 9th District, Krisztina Baranyi, received threatening messages after refusing to answer questions from a journalist of the pro-government media Pesti Srácok on a TV show a few days earlier. The mayor had refused to answer an inquiry about the payment of utility bills in Ferencváros. She replied: “I’ve been saying it for a long time, and I vowed that I would never speak to the propaganda media, to paid propagandists, so I won’t do that now either. I didn’t know you would be here, and if I’d known, I wouldn’t have come.”

Following this, Gergely Huth, Pesti Srácok’s editor-in-chief, defended his colleague and freedom of the press in general. “According to the editorial office of PestiSrácok.hu, the presenters of ATV acted ethically and correctly when they warned Krisztina Baranyi, a public figure and public official, of the seriousness of her actions and rejected the accusations and slanders that seriously hurt our colleague Szilárd Szalai’s professional honor and human dignity. We evaluate Krisztina Baranyi’s statements and behaviour as a gross attack on press freedom,” read the media release.

In Serbia, several cases of online threats and intimidation were also recorded. On November 6, Dragoljub Petrović, editor-in-chief of Danas daily newspaper, received a threatening email which had “Belgrade Charlie Hebdo” in the subject, alluding to the 2015 terrorist attack on a French satirical magazine. The message described detailed plans of an attack on Danas offices in Belgrade. Days earlier, on November 3, Serbian parliamentarian Staša Stojanović, a member of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party, published an insulting tweet against the opposition, branding them “enemies of the state, people and [Serbian] identity”.

Finally, Dragan Bursać, a journalist based in Bosnia and Herzegovina writing for the Serbian portal Autonomija, received threatening messages on Instagram on November 2. The journalist is often targeted with threats, insults and hate speech because of his writing about nationalism and post-war societies in former Yugoslavia.

Hate speech still mars North Macedonian online environment

National, ethnic and other minorities, as underlined in some of our previous articles, are being systematically attacked in North Macedonia’s digital landscape, which remains full of hate comments and acts of discrimination.

Ethnic Albanians in North Macedonia’s capital, Skopje attending a protest. Photo: EPA/GEORGI LICOVSKI

The ethnic Albanian minority was subjected to the greatest number of registered episodes. On November 13, a Twitter user wrote that, “Shiptars (Albanians) went around the world to promote Islam as a religion of peace”. Another user typed: “Stinking traitors, Shiptarian poltroons, sold souls, filthy whores. Your faggot tribe, you should be exterminated”. Three days earlier, another Twitter user wrote that “Shiptars” are “the cancer of Macedonia”. The same user said: “Тhey’ve screwed up healthcare, economy, police, customs, infrastructure, history, constitutional order, judiciary, law and what not. No, I’m not a nationalist, I love Macedonia, and they treat it destructively. We hate you.”

Other acts targeted the LGBTI community. A Twitter user wrote on November 11: “Faggots in the past were much bigger men than today”, sharing a picture of the later gay singer Freddie Mercury. In another episode, a Twitter user commented that he was shocked at the way “faggots” go to the extreme of being attractive to straight culture.

Fake news, denigrated women and fear of retaliation in Romania

The latest cases recorded in Romania in the first half of November saw several violations of digital rights of various natures.

On November 9, a priest told a live interview on BZI’s Facebook page, a local media outlet in Iasi, north-eastern Romania: “This is about two unmarried girls. In my opinion, they both suffer from some kind of deviant behaviour. They are hysterical.” His accusations concerned two women he had attacked on the grounds of Vladiceni Monastery, on the outskirts of Iasi. The two women not only filed a criminal complaint but also filmed the attack and published the video on Facebook. During the interview, BZI journalists did not contact the two women.

Activists belonging to two feminist NGO associations protest peacefully in front of the Bucharest Court’s headquarters against sexual abuse, aggression and violence against girls and women in Bucharest, Romania, 08 March 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE/ROBERT GHEMENT

Three days earlier, on November 6, Emilia Sercan, an investigative journalist who recently revealed the PM’s plagiarism, complained of being often followed by “strange men” in Bucharest. Her fear of retaliation reflected that she said she had been followed by state actors multiple times recently. Sercan said she suspected it might be part of an attempt to expose her sources. “This is a failure of the state. If a journalist is harassed, surveilled or targeted by ‘kompromat’ actions, these are signs of a failing state and of a failing political class that doesn’t understand the role of the media in a society,” Sercan told Radio Free Europe Romania.

Another episode saw the spread of a fake narrative about unexploited diamond reserves in Romania by multiple online media, including one that uses the visual identity of the well-known newspaper Romania Libera. However, there never were any natural diamond reserves in Romania, according to Stefan Marincea, a researcher at the National Institute of Geology.

Phishing and online scams hit Serbia

Computer frauds in digital spaces show no sign of slowing down and are occurring at an alarming rate in many countries.

Serbia recorded two such episodes on November 4. First, a fraudulent email allegedly coming from the Serbian branch of Raiffeisen bank claimed to contain an international payment copy. The spreadsheet attachment was probably aimed at infecting devices with a macro-virus.

On the same day, the Ministry of Interior warned the public about phishing emails impersonating police commanders and heads of police departments. The malicious emails, sent to a number of state institutions and private citizens, contain an attachment allegedly in connection with charges of paedophilia and other criminal acts.

Greek police arrested a well-known and awarded photojournalist Nikos Pilos, while reporting in the Prosfygika area in Athens on a police operation hunting a suspected arsonist.

Pilos was freed after midnight Tuesday; however, police filed 10 criminal charges against him.

“No one prevented me from entering the area. The tenants were holding an assembly. There was a little use of chemicals by the police, so we went up to the roof to get some air … The police also came up and, despite the fact that I showed them my professional identity card, arrested me. I was charged with 10 charges that can land you 15 years in prison,” Pilos told BIRN.

The police operation in the Prosfygika area of Alexandra Avenue was part of a search for a person suspected of involvement in arson attacks on the media Real Group. On November 13, a fire broke out in the building housing Real FM 97.8 and Real News. The Fire Service found improvised explosives.

Police said the operation was carried out to arrest a person involved in arson attacks. “After the arrest, groups of people gathered at the scene, climbed onto the roof and threw objects (stones, building materials, etc.) at the police forces, preventing the seizure and transport of the arrested person’s vehicle. So far, dozens of arrests have been made from the spot.”

Pilos has been documenting the lives of people leaving in the Prosfygika area in Athens since 2017. From 2019 to 2020, with the support of the non-profit organization iMEdD, he developed a cross-media, interactive project on the people living there.

Immigrants, refugees, political activists, workers, unemployed, elderly, homeless, families, drug addicts, and ex-prisoners have become neighbours in the housing complex, comprising eight buildings with 228 apartments. Some have papers, many are undocumented while others are in transit to Western Europe.

Greek newspaper EFSYN wrote that, after the first arrests, police organized a second operation in the area; among the arrested people was also a pregnant woman who complained that they did not provide her with medical assistance. Pictures on social media show kneeling people on the ground, tied to bars by the police.

Police issued a second press release saying that 78 people were arrested and charged with violence against officials and judicial persons, disturbance of the peace, joint infliction of bodily harm, infliction of grievous bodily harm by complicity and damage to property, as well as violation of the laws on guns, flares and sparklers. “The result of their illegal actions was the injury of seven police officers, two of them seriously,” wrote the press release.

Police told BIRN they currently cannot make any comments on the issue.

Christos Mponis, president of the Photojournalist Union of Greece, told BIRN that journalists must be free to do their work.

“Since professional photojournalists have their professional ID signed by the chief of police, the law enforcement agencies must respect the public document and leave us free to do our jobs. We only record the facts and it is a constitutional right to practice our profession,” he said.

The Foreign Press Association, FPA, condemned the arrest and detention of Pilos, saying that the charges were imposed without testimony or evidence against him; and called on the police, judicial authorities, and the state to drop all charges.

The FPA mentioned that the police that day obstructed the work of journalists and photojournalists and In a press release announced that will take measures to secure the safety of journalists.

Pilos is an Athens-based, award-winning photojournalist and filmmaker. He is one of Europe’s noted feature photographers. He has travelled extensively to document war, natural disasters, poverty, socioeconomic struggle and cultural shifts and his work regularly appears in leading international newspapers and magazines throughout Europe and the US.

Radio Television of Kosovo offices in the capital Pristina. Photo: BIRN

The board of Radio Television of Kosovo, RTK said in a statement on Friday that its allocated budget of 8.96 million euros for 2023 is inadequate and will not allow the public broadcaster to make any investment in new equipment or technology.

“The budget of 8.96 million euros is the smallest budget ever allocated to RTK in the last ten years,” said the board after the Kosovo parliament approved the budget on its first reading on Thursday.

The 2023 budget is the same as the one for 2022 and significantly lower than the one for 2021.

“This budget is 2.2 million euros less than the 2021 budget,” the RTK board’s statement said.

It complained of alleged past mismanagement at the public broadcaster, which it said was proved by Kosovo National Audit in its 2019-2021 report on RTK, as well as in the 2021 financial audit report for RTK.

“As one consequence, amongst others, 1.6 million euros in debt have been inherited, which involve the constant threat of the RTK bank accounts being frozen,” it said, adding that this debt cannot be paid off under the allocated budget for 2023.

The board also claimed that the allocated budget for 2023, including RTK’s income from marketing and savings, isn’t enough to fulfill the legal criteria for awarding contracts to independent productions.

It also excludes any capital investment in RTK, including in equipment, new technology, signal distribution and content.

Valon Ramadani, an MP from ruling party Vetevendosje, the head of parliamentary commission on public administration, local governance, media, and regional development, told BIRN that “from November 21 to 25, we as the commission will organise the public hearing envisaged by the regulations. In this case, we will take into account requests submitted by anyone who has an interest.”

Mergim Lushtaku from the opposition party Democratic Party of Kosovo, PDK, who sits on the same parliamentary commission, told BIRN that Kosovo’s government “is not giving [RTK] the importance it deserves in a democratic state”.

“The situation at RTK is worrisome because they need a lot of different equipment… they do not even have digitalisation,” Lushtaku said.

He added that he hopes the issue will be rectified because “we need a public broadcaster that is politically independent”.

On November 17, RTK board member Driton Hetemi told the problematic commission on media that the situation with the budget is concerning “because it does not help us to improve the programmes for the next year”.

“We haven’t bought any external productions because we don’t have a single cent for such things and we have a legal requirement to buy external productions,” he added.

Hetemi added that RTK generates less than a million euros a year from advertising.

A conference held on Wednesday by international media freedom organisations also highlighted the lack of proper financial support to the public broadcaster RTK.

Government-imposed restrictions on social media and broadcasters following the bomb attack that killed six people in Istanbul on Sunday were contrary to the public interest, a media freedom expert told BIRN.

“In times of crisis, it is crucial to have access to accurate, reliable and verified information. Any attempts at suppressing this flow leads to increased speculation and distrust in society,” said Gurkan Ozturan, coordinator of Media Freedom Rapid Response at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom.

Despite the public need for information, the Turkish authorities gave “a media blackout order, blocking independent journalists’ access to press conferences and throttling bandwidth for social media platforms”, explained Ozturan, who is also one of the authors of Freedom House’s annual ‘Freedom on the Net’ reports.

After Sunday’s deadly blast, the Turkish government immediately imposed a broadcasting ban, prohibiting the use of close-up videos and photos of the blast and its aftermath.

It then imposed restrictions on social media platforms including Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

Ozturan said that such blackouts leave the public in “darkness”, causing unease, and are a worrying sign for the future.

“The ban on social media after the bomb attack signals darker times for digital freedoms,” Ozturan.

The ban came after Turkey adopted new digital rights legislation which has been described as a ‘censorship law’ by experts, rights groups and journalists.

Critics say that press and internet freedoms have been suspended by the disinformation law, which will increase the authoruties’ control over media and social networks before important elections in 2023.

The aftermath of the bomb attack highlighted some of the contradictions of Turkey’s policy on internet freedom, Ozturan argued.

“The information landscape in Turkey is in such an absurd state that even the head of Information and Communication Technologies Authority (BTK) turned to Twitter to share his message of condolences despite having implemented the bandwidth throttling order only hours before on Sunday, practically blocking millions of people’s access to social media platforms,” he said.

The Turkish authorities claim that the bomb attack was organised by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK and the Syrian Democratic Forces, YPG.

However, both organisations refused the claims.

“We affirm that our forces have nothing to do with the Istanbul bombing, and we reject the allegations accusing our forces of that,” Mazlum Abdi, the general commander of the YPG, wrote on Twitter.

Turkish police said on Tuesday that as well as the suspected bomber, Syrian citizen Alham Albashir, they have arrested 50 more people over their alleged roles in the attack.

Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca announced on Tuesday that 58 of the 81 people who were injured have now been discharged from hospitals.

“Seventeen injured patients are in [ordinary clinics] and six patients are still in intensive care. Our healthcare professionals are doing their best to bring you good news,” Koca said.

Kosovo media companies’ microphones. Photo: BIRN

A conference held on Wednesday after a two-day visit to Kosovo by international media freedom organisations heard that although the country has made progress in depoliticising the public broadcaster and introducing a legal framework for improving the media environment, this progress is being undermined by problems like politicians’ toxic rhetoric and smear campaigns against journalists.

The underfunding of the public broadcaster and a lack of official transparency are other issues, the conference in Pristina organised by the Council of Europe’s Platform on Safety of Journalists was told.

Verbal attacks on journalists and media outlets by state officials, politicians and people connected to the ruling party Vetevendosje are also disturbing, the conference heard.

“Divisive rhetoric and smear campaigns directed at journalists by some politicians and public officials, including from the governing party, is creating a growing climate of hostility against the media,” said the International Press Institute, one of the organisations that participated in the visit.

It said that such rhetoric could cause “threats, online harassment and physical violence”.

Flutura Kusari from the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom also told the conference on Wednesday that in addition to the positive findings about “the advancement of press freedom, the legal framework for the protection of journalists and positive developments in the public broadcaster”, derogatory language towards the media and journalists from politicians, mainly from ruling party Vetevendosje, remains a problem.

Kusari claimed that “the safety of journalists, impunity, non-handling of cases of missing journalists, problems in access to information in the Serbian language, and the lack of transparency of the current government continue to be one of the main challenges journalists face”.

Pavol Szala from Reporters Without Borders said that “verbal attacks by politicians on journalists create an unsafe climate that can encourage physical threats and intimidation against journalists”.

Roberta Taveri from Article 19 also highlighted the lack of government transparency as worrying.

“This issue raised by journalists must be improved, since access to information is also an obligation of the government,” she said.

Attila Mong from the Committee to Protect Journalists noted meanwhile that progress has not been made in following up cases of physical attacks on and threats against journalists.

The Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Dunja Mijatovic, also said in a report in October that Kosovo is not doing enough to protect journalists from violence after a rise in attacks and threats in 2021.

While such warnings should result in reduced visibility for sites that continue to promote fake news, it is unlikely that content containing false information will actually ever be removed by Meta unless it goes against community standards, such as hate speech.

Small publishers in the Balkans say they are being unfairly punished for relying on pickups that turn out to be false, while fact-checkers find themselves caught in the crossfire, demonised by social media users and media outlets that appear not to understand the real nature of their work while taking the flak for the continued scourge of fake news.

Meta “used us as a scapegoat for why there was still ‘fake news’ out there, instead of taking any responsibility for their own massive role in spreading it and pushing it to the screens of the people they had identified as being most likely to believe it and be motivated to act on it,” said Brooke Binkowski, a former managing editor of Snopes, a fact-checking site that has partnered with Facebook.

BIRN asked Facebook for data concerning content in Balkan languages but received no response. Meta also did not respond to a request for comment on the third-party fact-checking programme, commonly known as TPFC.

System widely misunderstood

Illustration, visitors take picture of billboard sign featuring a new logo and name ‘Meta’ in front of Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, USA, October 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/JOHN G. MABANGLO

Facebook fact-checking took off following the 2016 election of Donald Trump as US president, when the social networking giant was accused of contributing to deep political polarisation and a failure to clamp down on misinformation designed to manipulate voters.

The work was outsourced to independent media organisations specialised in debunking false reports.

To become a Meta fact-checking partner, an organisation must be a signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principle, meaning it must have a track record of doing fact-checking in its respective country or countries. With Meta’s own algorithm struggling to detect content that violates community standards in non-English speaking areas, the work of local fact-checkers is seen as essential.

Based on algorithms and user reports, Meta flags to fact-checkers content they should take a look at; fact-checkers can also identify hoaxes on their own.

“Istinomer journalists on a daily level scan the platforms and media outlets in order to find viral potentially false information that could harm and influence citizens’ decision-making, or for which it is in the public interest that they are fact-checked,” said Milena Popovic of Belgrade-based fact-checker Istinomer.rs.

Popovic said that “it is not fully transparent” how Meta identifies potentially false information, but the company itself says it picks up on posts based on a number of signals, including how people are responding and how fast the content is spreading.

During major news events or for topics that are trending, Meta also uses keyword detection to gather related content in one place, making it easier for fact-checkers to find it, but BIRN has reported before on the problems Facebook’s AI has in detecting content that violates its standards in languages other than English.

Once the content has been fact-checked, it receives a rating on Meta’s platforms, from ‘false content’ to content containing ‘some factual inaccuracies’ to content that implies a false claim without stating it directly. Such posts are not removed, but Meta reduces their spread and the advertising earnings that can be made off them.

“The content removed by Facebook is content that does not comply with its advertising policies, content that contains hate crimes, and posts related to terrorism from fake accounts,” said Emre Ilkan Saklica of Turkish fact-checking organisation Teyit. “We have no involvement there.”

Fact-checkers say this is frequently misunderstood, to dramatic effect.

“Fact-checkers do not have the technical or any other ability to remove content or ‘suspend pages’ and this is not at all what TPFC is about,” said Tijana Cvjeticanin from Sarajevo-based Raskrinkavanje.ba.

“Nevertheless, people who make money off spreading disinformation, toxic political propaganda or conspiracy theories (or, in some cases, people who genuinely believe such narratives) often publish outrights lies about the work that we do”, Cvjeticanin told BIRN.

“This has morphed into a form of harassment fuelled by false arguments like the made-up claims that we ‘surveil’ private profiles or that we censor, remove, or ban content on Facebook.”

No right to appeal for personal accounts

Illustration. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDREJ CUKIC

In a BIRN questionnaire aimed at Meta users in the Western Balkans, Turkey and Greece, of all posts that respondents said were flagged as false, 21 per cent concerned public individuals such as politicians, journalists, celebrities, sportspeople or businessmen; 17 per cent concerned issues related to COVID-19.

Some two thirds of COVID-19 content that was flagged was shared by private individuals, while journalists were behind most flagged content concerning domestic politics and armed conflicts.

Some 15 per cent of flagged content reported by the questionnaire respondents concerned armed conflict, including in Ukraine, Yemen and Syria, while 13 per cent was about domestic politics.

Fact-checkers who spoke to BIRN said it is difficult to single out any one topic that triggers most fake news. But photos were more likely to be flagged than text articles; 41 per cent compared to 30, according to the BIRN questionnaire.

Meta directs fact-checkers to prioritise analysing content about the use or effects of medicine, products or jobs that could risk major financial loss, elections or crises or those targeting a particular ethnic, social or religious group.

One third of respondents said they didn’t remember the exact rating applied to their content; around a quarter said their posts were labelled ‘false’. Under Meta’s rules, most of these people cannot appeal since this is only possible for individuals if the post was shared on a page or within a group, not on personal profiles.

Almost half of respondents said they noticed their posts received less attention after being flagged; in 59 per cent of cases, the posts were later removed, apparently for violating Meta’s community standards.

Politicians spared much scrutiny

Illustration: Unsplash.com/Sergey Zolkin

In terms of media outlets, some appear keen to correct content flagged by fact-checkers given their sensitivity to the hit to their earnings if Facebook reduces their visibility.

Since joining Meta’s fact-checking programme in 2020, Darvin Muric, editor in chief at Raskrinkavanje.me in Montenegro, said the organisation began receiving “a dramatically higher number of corrections.”

“Media started correcting their inaccurate articles themselves and sending requests to correct the rating,” Muric told BIRN. “Media outlets sent us literally hundreds of such corrections, and recently they started sending us corrections for articles that they didn’t even share on Facebook.”

But, said Muric, it’s a different story when it comes to “individual pages, fake profiles, extreme right-wing portals, places designed to spread false news and hate.”

“They don’t use the options of appeal or correction,” he said. “They prefer to launch online campaigns targeting Raskrinkavanje.me editorial staff, journalists, or management.”

Currently, Meta does not apply such warning labels to the posts of ads of politicians, despite their clear role in spreading false information.

While fact-checking organisations continue to fact-check politicians’ statements in their regular work, Meta has rebuffed calls to include them in its ratings system. To do so would have a significant effect, said Cvjeticanin of Raskrinkavanje.ba.

“Statements from political actors often reach more people than other types of content, especially if the actors in question are skilled at using social media,” she told BIRN.

“If these statements contain false claims, particularly dangerous ones that promote conspiracy theories like QAnon and such, it’s important that people who see or hear them are also able to see the facts and accurate information about those claims.”

Meta justifies its approach as “grounded in its fundamental belief in free expression, respect for the democratic process.”

“Especially in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is the most scrutinised speech there is,” the company says on its website. “Just as critically, by limiting political speech, we would leave people less informed about what their elected officials are saying and leave politicians less accountable for their words.”

Muric points out, however, that people in the Balkans do not live in ‘mature democracies’ with a free press.

“Raskrinkavanje.me currently does not have a special section or newsroom that would check politicians’ statements,” he said, “but we analyse media articles in which false claims of politicians are transmitted without verification, or when biased reporting favours facts, positions and conclusions that fit a certain narrative, often without respecting the rule of contacting the other side.”

Azem Kurtic based in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina contributed to this article.