Author: Ivana Jeremic

Facebook Pulls Pro-Trump Network Operating From Romania

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Facebook on Thursday announced it had removed dozens of accounts on Facebook and Instagram operated by people in Romania who claimed to be American supporters of US President Donald Trump, Reuters reported. A few Trump fan pages also created in Romania were shut down as well.

“We removed 35 Facebook accounts, 3 Pages and 88 Instagram accounts,” reads the report in which Facebook informed of the removal of the Romanian-based accounts. 

“The people behind this network used fake accounts – some of which had already been detected and disabled by our automated systems – to pose as Americans, amplify and comment on their own content, and manage Pages including some posing as President Trump fan Pages,” the document concluded.

Besides hiding their real locations, some of the cancelled accounts presented “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” that violated the platforms’ rules, Facebook said. Some of the accounts were run by the same persons, using multiple fake identities, for example. 

The accounts promoted stories backing Trump’s re-election in November and stressing the support he was allegedly receiving from conservatives, black Americans, Christians and followers of the so-called QAnon conspiracy theory, Reuters said.

QAnon conspiracy followers believe Trump is waging a secret war against an elite of Satan-worshipping paedophiles operating in government, business and the media.

Facebook security policy head Nathaniel Gleicher said the company hadn’t determined yet if the Romanian group was motivated by money, ideology or a government directive.

“This activity originated in Romania and focused on the US. We found this network as part of our investigation into suspected coordinated inauthentic behavior ahead of the 2020 election in the US,” the company added.

The reach of the scrapped accounts seems to have been small, as they were followed by no more than a few thousand other accounts.

Facebook Tightens Rules on Political Ads in Montenegro

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Advertisers who want to run ads about social issues, elections or politics in Montenegro on Facebook will face new tightened, restrictive rules from Thursday, ahead of August 30 parliamentary elections and in line with Facebook’s new transparency regulations, promoted last year.

Advertisers will now have to complete a new authorizations process. It applies to anyone who wants to create or edit ads targeting Montenegro and that reference political figures, political parties or elections.

The social media giant explained that such ads will now also be marked “Paid for by…” as a disclaimer, showing who paid for the specific political ad. To get authorization for such promotions, Facebook will ask for government-issued ID and two official documents.

“We’ll also use it to help detect and prevent risks such as impersonation or ID theft, which helps to keep you and our community safe. It won’t be shared on your profile, in ads or with other admins of your Pages or ad accounts,” Facebook said on its official page.

“We require that the advertiser provide additional information, like a local business address, local phone number, email and website, if they choose to use their organization or Page name in the disclaimer. These requirements hold advertisers accountable for the ads they run on Facebook and Instagram,” the social media giant wrote on its Facebook for Business website.

Political parties in Montenegro have often used social media in ways that are far from transparent during elections and without proper insight about the money spent and audience targeted.

In March, Facebook added Montenegro and some other Balkan countries to the list of regions that will be subject to new political transparency rules.

Enforcement of the new regulations was announced for mid-March, about a month before scheduled parliamentary elections in Serbia and North Macedonia. In the event, both the elections and implementation of the new regulations were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

North Macedonia’s Ruling Party Won Twitter War in Election

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Largely because the COVID-19 outbreak reduced classical campaigning and election rallies, the main political blocs at the July 15 early general elections invested serious attention in social media and in Twitter campaigns.

But what happened within the social network bubbles did not always reflects accurately real life, or the election results.

Despite being twice as active on Twitter, the ruling alliance led by the Social Democrats under Zoran Zaev, pulled off only a wafer-thin victory at the polls, winning 46 of the 120 seats in parliament, just two more than their right-wing rivals in VMRO DPMNE.

BIRN’s comparative analysis on the tweets of the party candidates and the use of their punchline hashtags, done with the help of SHARE foundation, reveals several characteristics.

When it came to their official hashtags, such as “We Can” and “We Care”, used by the Social Democrats, and “Choose Renewal” and “Rise Up Macedonia”, used by VMRO DPMNE, the former were clearly dominant, for example. Ruling alliance hashtags could be seen on more than 5,600 tweets. Those of the opposition were found in just over 2,100.

Yet their strategies were very similar, with party leaders and the electoral lists’ heads in the six electoral districts posting the initial electoral propaganda, and sympathizers disseminating it.

Only some party sympathizers used their personal profiles with their names clearly displayed. Most posts were retweeted by profiles using pseudonyms or just codenames. Thus, one assumption is that these were automatized profiles, or bots.

One difference between them was that the posting of tweets was more evenly spread in the ruling party bloc.

While Social Democratic leader Zaev led the process, much of the party’s communication also originated from other prominent figures, such as Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov, Vice Prime Minister Mila Carovska, Defence Minister Radmila Shekerinska, provisional PM Oliver Spasovski and others – most of them leading the lists of candidates in the six electoral districts.

In the opposition bloc, most of the traffic originated from the profile of the VMRO DPMNE leader, Hristijan Mickoski, or from the official party twitter profile. Compared to these two, the activity of the other opposition party officials was negligible.


Illustration depicting the twitter interactions between the two political blocs: BIRN

While most Twitter posts on Zaev’s profile referred to the alliance’s own campaign points and promises, some 10 per cent were reserved for negative campaigning against the opposition.

Among these negative posts, most suggested that if VMRO DPMNE came back to power, it would mean a “return of the regime” – referencing the authoritarian government of former VMRO DPMNE leader and former prime minister Nikola Gruevski.

Most of the tweets from the profile of opposition leader Mickoski also focused on election promises and on parts of the party’s manifesto. But about 13 per cent of tweets were devoted to attacking the other side.

The most common tweets attacking the Social Democrats referred to alleged “crimes” committed by Zaev, mostly drawing on connections to the high-profile “Extortion” trial in which the former head of the Special Prosecution, SJO, Katica Janeva – once strongly supported by Zaev – and others were found guilty of extortion.

Other posts accused Zaev of undermining the national interest by presiding over important friendship deals with neighbouring Bulgaria and the historic “name” agreement with Greece.

The analysis shows that nine of the ten most shared posts during the campaign were those of Social Democratic officials, with Zaev’ post sharing the official video commercial of their campaign, in which the party says it has achieved a lot and can do even more, being most shared.

The opposition leader posted the tenth most shared post as well. In it, he shared a video advertisement in which he implored young people to stay in the country and to “fight for Macedonia”.

Analyzing overall Twitter communications during the election campaign, Zaev’s name was mentioned most often. His profile was mentioned in 3,100 posts, while that of the opposition leader Mickoski was mentioned in 1,580.

Despite the bitter electoral war waged on Twitter by both blocs and their supporters, neither bloc got exactly what it sought.

Zaev did not win a comfortable majority for a new government to accomplish his promised changes.

Mickoski also failed to persuade enough voters that it was time he took over and started to “strengthen the spines” of the country’s supposedly humiliated citizens.

Albania Courts Seize TV Stations Owned by Govt Critic

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Albania’s Special Prosecutors on Monday said they seized scores of properties of Ylli Ndroqi, one of the main media owners in the country, who has crossed swords with the government, suspecting they were the product of international drugs trading. Among the seized assets are two TV stations, Ora News and Channel One.

“We have reasons to suspect that Ylli Ndroqi (alias Xhemail Pasmaciu) and his relatives have unjustified wealth that might have originated in his criminal activity in Albania, Turkey and Italy,” prosecutors said.

Several apartments, cars, including a Rolls Royce, as well as 100,000 square metres of forested area near Tirana were seized along with the TV stations. Police forces were stationed on the premises of Ora News on Monday afternoon.

The seized television stations have hosted several talks shows critical of the Socialist government of Prime Minister Edi Rama who has made no secret of his frustration with critical media.

Ndroqi has exchanged words personally with Rama ally Tirana Mayor Erion Veliaj on social media, Ndoqi accused Veliaj of attempting to silence his journalists while Veliaj accused Ndroqi of attempting to blackmail him.

Alban Qafa, a defence attorney for the suspect, told journalists that his client’s wealth was legitimate and the seizure order would be fought in the courts. “Ndroqi’s wealth has legitimate sources and we will prove this,” Qafa said, adding that his client suspected that the seizure was the result of a political attack.

Brahim Shima, director of Ora News, also considered the move a politically motivated attack, due to his station’s editorial line.

According to prosecutors, Ndroqi was arrested in Turkey in 1998 under the name Xhemail Pasmaciu while data about his suspected criminal activity were collected by the joint collaboration of Turkish and Italian authorities.

Ndroqi is not currently under arrest or charged as yet.

North Macedonia Editor Faces Charges of Revealing Official Secrets

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Media unions and watchdogs in North Macedonia have said they want to look into why a news portal editor has been charged with revealing official secrets.

The owner and editor-in-chief of Ekonomski Lider news portal, Ljupcho Zlatev, is accused of publishing two articles in July in which he has revealed classified documents from the former Directorate for Security and Counterintelligence, UBK, which was recently been transformed into Agency for National Security, ANB, and which he obtained illegally. He faces up to five years in prison if found guilty.

The two texts, published on July 9 and July 12, refer to a former employee of the now-defunct UBK who did not pass the security checks needed to transfer into the newly formed ANB.

Allegedly, this was because his father had participated in street protests against the change of the country’s name, which parliament had approved in early 2019, as part of a historic agreement with Greece.

“In both texts, the accused made available to the public copies of UBK documents – acts from operational checks on a person – which are listed as classified info,” the prosecution in Skopje said on Thursday.

The ANB was formed in 2019 under a law supported by both the government and opposition to replace the notorious secret police, the UBK, which was at the centre of an illegal wiretapping scandal in 2015.

To strengthen oversight over its work, the ANB no longer operates as part of the Interior Ministry but as an independent government body. It also no longer has police powers or is in charge of the technical process of surveillance, which was given to a separate agency.

But, as most of its employees come from the old UBK, a selection or vetting process was introduced to ensure that old corrupt para-intelligence structures did not get through.

Zlatev, who was seen as part of the PR machinery of former PM Nikola Gruevski and often perceived as a propagandist rather than a journalist, defended his action on social networks, saying that he had acted in the public interest.

Over the past two years, seven complaints of unethical and unprofessional conduct have been filed against Zlatev to the Journalistic Council of Ethics, a self-regulation body.

“I published [the texts] because after one father attended the protests against the change of name [to the country], his son lost his security certificate and the chance to work in the ANB,” he wrote.

“This UBK construct is a classic blow to citizens’ political freedoms and big public interests, so that is why I published the documents that a whistle-blower gave me.

“If I got similar documents now, I would also publish them without thinking twice!!! I could repeat the act because freedom and democracy are more important to me than any legal provision,” Zlatev added.

The country’s oldest and biggest media union, the Association of Journalists of Macedonia, ZNM, said it would look into the case and demand answers from the prosecution.

“We don’t know all the details of the case and analysis needs to be done. But every time a case is opened by the prosecution in the domain of freedom of expression and the right to inform, it can be problematic,” ZNM head Mladen Cadikovski told 360 Degrees news portal on Thursday.

“The public interest can be stronger than the law if publication reveals the misuse of certain institutions. We are demanding a meeting with [chief] prosecutor [Ljubomir] Joveski on several topics, and this will be one of the issues that we wish to discuss,” Cadikovski added.

Index Sacking Worsens Pressure on Hungary’s Free Media

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Hungary’s largest and most widely read online news site may be the next victim in the fight for press freedom in Central Europe, after Index’s editor-in-chief, Szabolcs Dull, was unexpectedly fired on Wednesday by the president of the foundation that owns it.

The official explanation for Dull’s removal was that, as editor-in- chief, he had created unfavourable market conditions by communicating – a month ago – that the news site’s independence was at stake.

Dull met with the editorial team on Wednesday and said he had been offered a substantial amount of money “if he kept his mouth shut”. He said he declined the offer and instead pleaded for “his colleagues not to be silent”.

Index has no new editor-in chief at the moment; most eyes are on Dull’s predecessor, senior editor Attila Tóth-Szenesi, who is respected by his colleagues.

Dull told his final meeting with colleagues that there had been a lot of pressure on the editorial team recently, but that most of the outside criticism was not based on the content but on the organization of the news site. A few weeks ago, a controversial business plan was leaked that aimed to cut the editorial team into shreds and remove much of its independence. The restructuring would was necessary to keep the company afloat, some members of the board of directors had reportedly argued.

But, according to BIRN’s sources, the site’s financial problems have been over-estimated and exaggerated by some members of the board to put the journalists under pressure. “The money that they said Index owes the sales house could easily have been paid back, but then they came up with further demands, just to keep up the pressure,” one journalist told BIRN earlier.

Index is owned by a foundation, but all its revenues come through the sales house, Indamedia, which is currently owned by two managers close to the government of Viktor Orban. One of them, Miklós Vaszily, is also the chairman of the government-close private television TV2, and played a role at “taming” Origo, the other main online news site, some years ago.

Since Vaszily obtained 50 per cent of the shares in Index’s saleshouse in mid-March, most journalists were aware that the government was preparing for a push against the remaining flagship for independent journalism in Hungary.

Hungary’s governing Fidesz party has an impressive track record when it comes to silencing critical media. It mostly relies on a strategy of sticks and carrots: instead of directly cracking down on disobedient media, it hires loyal businessmen to act as middlemen.

It also conceals its political motives with the excuse of the media outlet’s financial difficulties – mostly created by its own distortion of the advertising market. Government-loyal media receive as much as 87 per cent of all state advertising, regardless of the number of their readers, research done by the Mérték Media Monitor Institute has indicated.

Moldovan Journalists Accuse Russian Peacemakers in Transnistria of Assault

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Two Moldovan journalists, Viorica Tataru and her colleague, Andrei Captarenco, both working for TV8 station, filled a complaint on Tuesday to the police Inspectorate in Dubasari after claiming that Russian peacemakers and Transnistrian border guards had assaulted them while doing their job.

“I have had previous incidents with them, but this time they became violent. One hit my hand and I dropped the phone, after which he took it from me and started deleting videos and pictures. The so-called peacemaker was very aggressive,” Tataru told BIRN.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the breakaway regime in Transnistria illegally erected 37 new checkpoints in the so-called Security Zone, the buffer zone separating Moldova from the breakaway region. The two journalists were shooting a video at one of the checkpoints when the trouble started.

Tataru said her mobile phone was only returned after the Russian soldier erased all her photos and videos, and only after a threat to summon the Moldovan police.

The incident did not stop here. Russian soldiers followed the journalists on to the ferry they had to take to cross the Dniester River back to Moldova. Tataru said she suspected the soldiers intended to detain them. They told the journalists to get off the ferry, to which the journalists reportedly responded that they were only doing their job and could not agree with this request as neither the Russian nor the Transnistrian soldiers had the competence or authority to ask them for such a thing.

“In the end, I cried and told people I didn’t understand their [passive] reaction: we will leave, but you stay here. Why do you accept and keep your heads down? … you will remain here with the same problems,” Tataru told BIRN, recalling her words to her fellow passengers.

The incident ended after an hour of negotiations on the ferry, and only after some Moldovan veterans from war in 1992 intervened and the local police arrived at the dock.

The breakaway region of Transnistria has been de facto separated from the rest of the country since the so-called Dniester War in 1992. The pro-Russian regime has since then proclaimed its independence and sought to become a part of the Russian Federation. Mediated talks have achieved little.


The Moldovan journalists, Andrei Captarenco and Viorica Tataru, filing a complaint at the police station in Dubasari. Photo: Viorica Tataru Facebook page

“It is another abuse on the part of the Transnistrian police on Moldovan territory … and we can only condemn it,” the director of the Independent Press Association, API, Petru Macovei, told BIRN.

He added that the situation showed again that things had not moved on from the current deadlock, and that the constitutional rights of Moldovan citizens often remain violated, even while the national authorities in Moldova are silent about it.

“The current government [in Moldova] is trying in every way to cover up such incidents out of electoral interest, or out of its servile attitude towards Russia,” Macovei concluded.

“This incident, in addition to being a restriction on freedom of expression and journalistic freedom, highlights an older issue: the status of the peacekeeping mission in the Transnistrian region of Moldova,” a human rights lawyer, Pavel Cazacu, from the Chisinau-based NGO Promo-LEX, told BIRN.

The peace settlement of the Transnistrian War in 1992 gave a peacemaking mission, which combines about 1,500 Russian, Moldovan and Ukrainian peacemakers, the right to remain in the Security Zone.

Cazacu noted that Promo-LEX had constantly called for the transformation of this structure into an international civilian mission.

“I believe that this incident will be a test for the constitutional authorities of Moldova, and such behaviour towards journalists must be vehemently condemned,” Cazacu concluded.

Turkish Ruling Party Announces Strict Controls on Social Media

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

The Justice and Development Party, AKP announced on Tuesday that it will bring in a long-awaited new law to regulate social media more strictly and potentially impose large fines and bandwidth reductions on companies that do not comply with government demands.

“Closing social network providers is not our first priority. We have five levels of sanctions,” Ozlem Zengin, the AKP group deputy chairperson, told media.

She added that other countries such as the US, Germany and France are eyeing similar regulations but said that “there is still not an agreement on social media regulations [in international law]”.

“Violations of the right of privacy require sanctions,” Zengin added.

The new law will require social media companies to appoint an official representative in Turkey who will answer the government’s demands including the removal of “harmful content” in a timely manner.

If an official representative is not appointed or the demands are not answered, there are a series of potential penalties.

A company will first face a fine of 10 million Turkish lira fine (1.27 million euros) and then of 30 million lira (3.80 million euros).

If it still does not comply, it will face an advertisement ban for three months.

As a final sanction, its bandwidth will be halved and then cut by 95 per cent.

Citizens also can apply to social media companies if they claim their rights have violated and in this case, the fine will be 5 million lira (636,000 euros).

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned of harsh new regulations several weeks ago after he was angered by insults to members of his family on social media.

“Such platforms don’t suit this country and our people. That’s why we want these social media platforms completely shut or controlled after bringing the issue to our parliament,” Erdogan said on July 1.

Opposition parties and human rights groups see the new law as the president’s latest attempt to control media platforms and silence his critics.

The Turkish government has earlier asked social media companies to move their servers to Turkey.

The new regulations might result in these companies quitting the Turkish market, experts have warned.

The draft law on social media was introduced in April but was then postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The law is expected to come to parliament soon, before the summer recess.

Croatian PM Accused of ‘Shameful’ Accusations Against Journalist

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Andrej Plenkovic was accused of “shameful” behaviour for claiming during Monday’s pre-election debate on the private RTL channel that a journalist from the Croatian public broadcaster, Maja Sever, prepared his political rival Davor Bernardic for the televised showdown.

“Shameful behaviour by Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic, who accused colleague Maja Sever of working for the [opposition] SDP [Social Democratic Party] during a debate with Davor Bernardic on RTL. Unworthy of the office of Prime Minister,” Hrvoje Zovko, president of the Croatian Journalists’ Association, wrote on Twitter.

Zovko also claimed that Plenkovic constantly accuses journalists of working for the opposition.

But Plenkovic told reporters on Tuesday that this was not an attack on Sever, who he said he respects.

“If anyone has a feeling for journalists, then I have,” Plenkovic said.

The long-awaited TV debate ahead of this Sunday’s elections saw the two likeliest candidates for the next prime minister face each other in the studio – Plenkovic from the ruling conservative Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, and Social Democratic Party, SDP president Bernardic.

During the debate, Plenkovic asked Bernardic if Sever prepared him for the show, because Bernardic came to the studio with a sheaf of documents, which included data and graphs that he tried to use to prove the failures of Plenkovic’s government.

Sever is president of the Trade Union of Croatian Journalists and a longtime journalist with Croatian public broadcaster HRT. She collaborates with the host and editor of the HRT talk show ‘Nedjeljom u dva’ (‘Sunday at 2 pm’), Aleksandar Stankovic, on which Plenkovic was a guest on June 14.

During that show, Stankovic confronted Plenkovic with some of his unfulfilled promises. Afterwards, according to media reports, Stankovic received criticism from his superiors for attacking the prime minister too much.

On Monday evening, Sever wrote on social media that before the HRT show on June 14, she and Stankovic prepared a few graphs and a list of Plenkovic’s statements and promises from the 2016 election campaign.

“It is an ordinary and simple journalistic job. I emphasise journalistic… The comments by the president of the HDZ [Plenkovic], who permits himself to say… that I was preparing someone for debate, is another attack by Andrej Plenkovic on independent journalism,” Sever wrote.

On June 23, Plenkovic also accused N1 TV journalist Hrvoje Kresic of agitating for the opposition after Kresic asked him if he would go into self-isolation when it was revealed that he had been in contact with tennis player Novak Djokovic, who was infected with coronavirus during a tennis tournament in Zadar in Croatia.

“I know you like to agitate for a team that you would like to not be in opposition, but in power,” Plenkovic told the N1 reporter. Kresic replied that he was not agitating but asking questions as a journalist.

The Croatian Journalists’ Association responded to this by saying that Plenkovic should stop making “inadmissible accusations against journalists who ask legitimate questions”.

“Journalists work neither for the government nor for the opposition, they work exclusively in the public interest,” the association said.

Dating Apps Help Balkans Rekindle Love in the Time of Corona

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Online dating has for, some time now, been the “new normal” for finding romance, with more people around the world using this method during the coronavirus pandemic as they seek a safe way to connect with potential partners. The take-up of online dating in the Balkans is patchier and less Tinder-focused, though data suggests that here, too, the pandemic is changing how people are using the apps.

The global online dating services market was worth $6.69 billion in 2018, according to an Allied Market Research report, and this is projected to reach $9.20 billion by 2025. There are hundreds of online dating websites and apps currently on the market, though Tinder makes a strong case for being the most popular dating app on a global scale.

Launched in 2012, Tinder allows users to anonymously swipe to ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ other users’ profiles, based on the photos they post. The US company behind Tinder, Match Group, says its app is more than just a regular dating app, describing it as a “cultural movement” that invented the now-famous “swipe culture”, where users quickly swipe through profiles and make instant decisions about how and whom to date.

Tinder officially claims “tens of millions” of users worldwide, with estimates putting the ‘movement’ at more than 50 million in 190 countries using 40 languages. Tinder users go on more than a million dates per week, with the biggest markets for the app being the US, the UK and Brazil.

During the coronavirus pandemic, despite widespread restrictions on movement and stay-at-home policies, the use of dating apps has increased globally. And Tinder is no exception, with the app recording a rise in use in many of the virus-stricken nations of Europe. In Italy, one of the countries with the largest number of coronavirus cases in Europe, Tinder saw an increase of 29% in the number of daily messages exchanged between active users during the second half of February and March, the company told BIRN in a statement. In Germany the increase over the same period was 33%, while in France it was 23%.

The company also noted an increase in the length of conversations by users; in Italy the increase was 28%, while in Spain, also one of the countries hardest hit by the pandemic, the increase was 26%.

Meeting certain needs


Illustration. Photo: Unsplash/Andrej Lisakov

The increase in the use of dating apps can be seen as fulfilling the need for intimacy during the prolonged period of lockdown and isolation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, experts say.

“We cannot put a limit on the human need for intimacy, closeness and sexuality during these times – that’s why there has been an increase in the use of dating platforms by as much as 30% in the last two months,” Skopje-based psychologist Bojana Stojmenovic tells BIRN.

Aside from intimacy, the apps also satisfy the need for instant gratification. These and other apps can be seen as a coping mechanism for getting that gratification, especially at a time when the pandemic has forced many societies indoors and brought everyday activities to a halt.

“A key element of the new dating apps and platforms is the speed and availability of finding the desired partner. We live in a time when we are used to instant gratification, to getting things with one click – for instance, we can get a pizza, a call from our favourite friend, our long-awaited shoes or even a partner,” Stojmenovic points out.

While Tinder is the most popular dating app across Europe, in Romania and Bulgaria it is Badoo that is used the most. Created in 2006 by Russian entrepreneur Andrey Andreev, Badoo now has more than 450 million users globally, with daily messages sent between users exceeding 350 million.

While the company does not have specific data on how much these numbers have increased in the Balkans during the pandemic months, it reports that the length of the daily conversations have, like on Tinder, increased.

“Our data shows that more conversations are happening, with increases of up to 35%. Data is showing and users are telling us that conversations are longer, and with paragraphs rather than one-liners,” Tristan Pineiro, Badoo’s global head of communications, tells BIRN in a statement.

According to Pineiro, these developments suggest a resurgence in sustained courtship and long-distance seduction. “We are re-learning the art of courtship and conversation, and hope that coming out of this all daters – particularly men – will have a newfound respect for honest connection and communication, which in turn equates to better and more successful matches, based on shared interests and deep connection,” he says.

And with video chatting now becoming an essential part of life and keeping in touch, Badoo expects that this “new normalization” will take hold in the dating world, too, Pineiro adds.

Online dating apps in North Macedonia: fact or fiction


Illustration. Photo: EPA-EFE/SASCHA STEINBACH ILLUSTRATION

In other Balkan countries, dating apps are used more sparingly, even under the present circumstances of movement restrictions and curfews.

One such place is North Macedonia, where romantic courtship is still conducted in a predominantly conservative manner. A source working in the adult online dating industry tells BIRN that the use of dating apps like Tinder in North Macedonia are still frowned upon.

“The reason for this is that we are a small market and a conservative environment. For example, an app like Bumble, where only female users can make the first contact if interested, would hardly work in our country,” the source says.

Also, many of the dating profiles contain bogus images, since users are reluctant to use their own pictures. “I think this happens because most of them are still ashamed of using such apps. Also, the number of male users is often disproportionately bigger than the number of female users, and this is not good in terms of how the dating apps function,” the source adds.

During the previous decade, North Macedonia had a dating website called Prijateli that existed for several years. According to the source, a few years back there was some interest in making a dating app specifically designed for North Macedonia, but after the potential investors conducted a market study, they decided against it.

For some, Instagram functions as a dating app instead. 35-year-old Marija from Skopje says that when it comes to dating, her experiences using this social network have been varied.

“There are two types [of people connecting with me]. Some start to like my photos, and then write to me. Others are approaching me as soon as they become my followers on the network,” Marija tells BIRN. “Most are behaving nicely, they begin by either complimenting me, or look for general info, such as where I live, my age, and so on.”

“However, there is also a second category of people who openly want to have sex, stating their intent in the opening conversation. But it is also interesting that 90 percent of those are either married or in long-term relationships and are constantly posting pictures and videos of how happy and in love they are,” Marija explains.

Instagram is also the preferred choice for 32-year-old Skopje resident Dejan when it comes to online dating.

“I don’t like to use dating apps. I have tried several times, and in most cases the profiles turned out to be fake. It’s different with Instagram, since you can actually see if the person you approach responds by liking your pictures or replying to your messages. I feel that this is a much more transparent way than using dating apps,” Dejan tells BIRN.

Regardless of how people are dating online, through apps or social media, the trend toward using the internet to find romance remains strong. And as uncertainty continues over how long the societal effects of the pandemic will last, online dating looks set to become a permanent fixture of Balkan’s dating scene.

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