Category: Digital rights

Southeast Europe Civil Society Must Cooperate to Combat Digital Violations

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Digital rights violations have been rising across Southeastern Europe since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic with a similar pattern – pro-government trolls and media threatening freedom of expression and attacking journalists who report such violations.

“Working together is the only way to raise awareness of citizens’ digital rights and hold public officials accountable,” civil society representatives attending BIRN and Share Foundation’s online event on Thursday agreed.

The event took place after the release of BIRN and SHARE Foundation’s report, Digital Rights Falter amid Political and Social Unrest, published the same day.

“We need to build an alliance of coalitions to raise awareness on digital rights and the accountability of politicians,” said Blerjana Bino, from SCiDEV, an Albanian-based NGO, closely following this issue.

When it comes to prevention and the possibilities of improving digital competencies in order to reduce risks about personal data and security, speakers agreed that digital and informational literacy is important – but the blame should not be only put on users.

The responsibility of tech giants and relevant state institutions to investigate such cases must be kept in mind, not just regular cases but also those that are more complicated, the panel concluded.

Uros Misljenovic, from Partners Serbia, sees a major part of the problem in the lack of response from the authorities.

“We haven’t had one major case reaching an epilogue in court. Not a single criminal charge was brought by the public prosecutor either. Basically, the police and prosecutors are not interested in prosecuting these crimes,” he said. “So, if you violate these rights, you will face no consequences,” he concluded.

The report was presented and discussed at an online panel discussion with policymakers, journalists and civil society members around digital rights in Southeast Europe.

It was the first in a series of events as part of Platform B – a platform that aims to amplify the voices of strong and credible individuals and organisations in the region that promote the core values of democracy, such as civic engagement, independent institutions, transparency and rule of law.

Between August 2019 and December 2020, BIRN and the SHARE Foundation verified more than 800 violations of digital rights, including attempts to prevent valid freedom of speech (trolling of media and the public engaged in fair reporting and comment, for example) and at the other end of the scale, efforts to overwhelm users with false information and racist/discriminatory content – usually for financial or political gain.

The lack of awareness of digital rights violations within society has further undermined democracy, not only in times of crisis, the report reads, and identifiers common trends, such as:

  • Democratic elections being undermined
  • Public service websites being hacked
  • Provocation and exploitation of social unrest
  • Conspiracy theories and fake news
  • Online hatred, leaving vulnerable people more isolated
  • Tech shortcuts failing to solve complex societal problems.

The report, Digital Rights Falter amid Political and Social Unrest, can be downloaded here.

Western Balkans Roaming Charges End – With Internet Use Warning

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Starting from Thursday, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo are dropping all roaming charges.

This means that citizens of these countries can make phone calls and send messages across the Western Balkan region without restrictions, paying the same prices as if they are in their home country.

However, the scrapping of roaming fees comes with a caveat, a warning for travelling citizens not to get too comfortable with their internet usage while abroad as there still might be some restrictions applied depending on their provider.

“Users are advised to always check their internet plans with their telecom providers, before travelling,” North Macedonia’s Agency for Electronic Telecommunications, AEK, said.

When it comes to internet traffic, in practice this means that some restrictions might apply, meaning that with some plans users might not be able to use all of their internet traffic from their home plan while abroad, the AEK explained,

Serbia’s Telenor provider explained that the use of the internet abroad will depend on the plan the users have.

“The amount [of internet traffic] depends on the monthly subscription for the tariff plan that users have, so there is no single unified amount, but it varies depending on the plan,” Telenor told N1 media outlet Thursday.

To prevent possible misuse of potentially lower prices in neighbouring countries, authorities across the region also said that while users can buy SIM cards in the neighbourhood, they will be able to use them only four months before they expire.

Roaming charges in the Western Balkan region were abolished in accordance with the Regional Roaming Agreement signed in 2019 at the second Western Balkans Digital Summit in Belgrade.

Countries from the region signalled that the next step would be mulling ways to reduce roaming charges between Western Balkans and the EU. For that purpose, a draft is expected to be prepared by the end of this year.

Digital Rights Falter amid Political and Social Unrest

Posted on by BIRD

When the global pandemic halted our “offline” lives, we moved meetings, dinners and parties, shopping, protests to the online sphere. As we sought comfort, education, business and social life in the digital, our only public sphere also became overwhelmed with content designed to manipulate and misinform citizens.

Journalists, civil society activists, officials and the general public have faced vicious attacks – including verbal abuse, trolling, smear campaigns and undue pressure to retract content – in response to publishing information online. Many of our data were stolen, and our privacy endangered. Surveillance flourished.

In the period from August 2019 until December 2020, BIRN and the SHARE Foundation were gathering information on digital rights violations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, North Macedonia, Hungary, Romania and Serbia, and our monitoring shows violations of digital rights continued at an alarming rate in all six countries.

As all six held elections during this period – local, general and/or presidential – our findings raise serious concerns about how the digital arena has been effectively hijacked to propagate fake news, hate-fuelled conspiracy theories and misinformation in support of offline efforts to sabotage democratic processes.

Just when people needed factually-correct information and governments needed close scrutiny to ensure high standards in public life, cyberattacks were launched against state bodies and the public were overwhelmed with false information and discriminatory content designed to manipulate voting and/or stoke hatred of particular groups.

Governments, on the other hand, used the pandemic to curb freedom of expression, abused health data, while many public institutions failed to meet standards of free and open internet.

During this period, BIRN and the SHARE Foundation verified more than 800 violations of digital rights including efforts to prevent valid freedom of speech (trolling of media and general public engaged in fair reporting and comment, for example) and at the other end of the scale, efforts to overwhelm users with false information and racist/discriminatory content – usually for financial or political gain.

Most online violations we monitored were under the category of pressures because of expression and activities (375) while the fewest violations monitored were classified as holding intermediaries liable (0).

Illustration: BIRN/Igor Vujcic

Action was taken in just 21 per cent of cases, which usually entailed – depending on the type of violation – removing articles or deleting posts and/or comments by the general public and public sector organisations. During the COVID-19 crisis, we saw a rise in arrests of citizens accused of causing panic by publishing fake news on social media. Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina were leading in this trend. Legal action, including arrests, penalties or other court action, was taken in less than 0.5 per cent of all monitored cases.

It is important to note that just as some violations included attempts to stifle free speech and frustrate freedom of expression through publishing falsehoods, not all legal actions launched to apparently hold intermediaries liable were legitimate attempts to protect freedom of speech. Some were cynical attempts against the public interest to block the publication of proven facts.

All these violations have contributed to an atmosphere dominated by fear and hatred with already vulnerable communities – such as LGBT+, groups identifying as female, migrants, particular ethnic groups – becoming subjected to worse and more frequent abuse, leaving them ever more isolated from support networks.

Those guilty of using the digital space to undermine democracy, intimidate others from publishing the truth or to spread malicious falsehoods operate with impunity, not least because there is no meaningful sense in the region of what constitutes digital rights – never mind the desire to or means to protect those rights.

Our report is the first effort on the regional level to map current challenges in the digital sphere and aims to fill in the gaps in the research. We took an interdisciplinary approach and looked at the problems from the legal, political, tech and societal angle, as an attempt to show that the problems and solutions to these violations should also be holistic and overarching. We also want to highlight these issues, as the lack of awareness of digital rights violations within society further undermines democracy, not only in times of crisis.

We don’t see the internet only as open and transparent but also see digital evolution as a set of mechanisms and tools that have great potential to serve the needs of people, and let’s not forget that internet access has proved indispensable in times of crisis such as in the COVID-19 pandemic.

We hope this report will serve not just for stock taking but be understood as a map showing what and how to further advance our rights, and also as an invitation to everyone to join forces in making our digital world healthy, too.

Marija Ristic is regional director of Balkan Investigative Reporting Network. Danilo Krivokapic is director of SHARE Foundation.

Report “Digital Rights Falter amid Political and Social Unrest” can be downloaded here.

As part of our Platform B, we are also hosting a discussion with policy makers, journalists and civil society members around digital rights in the Southeast Europe. Register here.

Slovenian Government ‘Eroding Media Freedom’, Report Warns

Posted on by BIRD

A new report published on Wednesday says that Slovenia, which takes over the rotating presidency of the EU on Friday, “has seen press freedom deteriorate ever since [Prime Minister Janez] Jansa returned to power in March 2020”.

“Since then, the ruling SDS [Slovenian Democratic] Party has embarked on a multipronged campaign to reshape the media landscape in favour of a pro-government narrative, renewing tactics successful during previous administrations and forging ahead with new forms of pressure,” said a press release for the report by Media Freedom Rapid Response, a group of press freedom organisations and journalism groups.

The report says said that the ruling party has been making “an aggressive attempt to seize greater control of the country’s public service broadcaster and national news agency using a mix of legal and administrative pressure”.

In late May, Slovenian journalists’ unions criticised the Culture Ministry after it revealed that several radio stations, well-known critical newspapers and investigative media outlets will no longer receive state funds.

These media outlets were defunded for their alleged “partiality”, but unions maintained that the Culture Ministry’s assessment was arbitrary. The Ministry insists the funding decisions were based on expert opinions.

The Media Freedom Rapid Response claims that at the same time, “propaganda media are being rewarded with lucrative state advertising contracts”.

Slovenia’s government also suspended financing for the Slovenian Press Agency, STA from the beginning of the year, alleging that the agency failed to deliver documents based on which it would be possible to determine a fair financing arrangement.

But some suspect that Jansa’s government is putting pressure on the STA to change its editorial policy by ‘weaponising’ the funding issue.

Slovenian media reported on Monday that the government has now asked its communications office to transfer a 845,000-euro advance to the STA for expected expenses.

Although the Media Freedom Rapid Response report welcomes the announcement, “serious concerns remain over the conditionality of this agreement and its detrimental effects on the independence of the agency”.

“We believe the government is only making this move because of the sustained criticism it has received for its actions and the need to remedy the situation before assuming the EU Presidency,” it says.

It also says that the Jansa government’s tactics “raise alarm as they reflect elements of the media capture strategy employed by Hungarian leader Viktor Orban”.

“Moreover, an influx of Hungarian capital linked to Orban’s Fidesz party is being used to prop up Slovenian pro-government media,” it adds.

A combative figure in the country, Jansa is known for his ‘Twitter wars’ against the media and individual journalists – and for his belief that he is fighting an entrenched left-leaning ‘deep state’.

An ally of Hungary’s authoritarian premier Orban, he has been accused of trying to take Slovenia down the same road.

Platform B: Amplifying Strong and Credible SEE Voices

Posted on by BIRD

Together with our partners, BIRN is launching a series of online and offline events aimed to amplify the voices of strong and credible individuals and organisations in the region that promote the core values of democracy, such as civic engagement, independent institutions, transparency and rule of law.

As a primarily media organisation, we want to open space and provide a platform to discuss and reshape our alliances in light of the challenges facing democracies in South-East and Central Europe.

This effort comes at a critical time when the region is seeing several troubling trends: centralized power, reduced transparency, assaults on media, politicized judiciaries, unchecked corruption, online violations and social polarization – all amidst heightened geopolitical tensions and deep divisions in Europe.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, Platform B event series will be organised in accordance with all relevant health measures. As the situation improves, we hope to be able to host some of the events in BIRN spaces in Sarajevo and Belgrade, and elsewhere in the region.

The Platform B will be an opportunity for individuals and groups to meet monthly on selected topics.

Illustration: Marta Klawe Rzeczy

Opening event: Digital Rights Falter Amid Political and Social Unrest: What Now?

Date: 1 July, 2021 (Thursday)

Time: 15.00, CET

At this event, BIRN and SHARE Foundation will discuss its annual digital rights report,together with other members of the newly established SEE Network, talking about the key trends concerning the digital ecosystem.

We monitored digital rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia and collected more than 1500 cases of online violations.

In Southern and Eastern Europe, where online disinformation campaigns are endangering guaranteed individual freedoms, and while the decline in internet safety has become a worrying trend, citizens with poor media and digital illiteracy have been left without viable protection mechanisms.

The event participants will have an opportunity to discuss and hear reflections from representatives of: EDRi, Zasto ne?, Citizen D, Homo Digitalis, SCiDEV, Partners Serbia, Metamorphosis, Atina NGO, Media Development Center.

More information and registration

Second event: Freedom of Information in the Balkans: Classified, Rejected, Delayed

Date: July 15, 2021 (Thursday)

Time: 14.00, CET

The global pandemic has been used as an excuse for many Balkan states to not fully implement freedom of information laws, leaving the public in the dark.

Transparency has been another victim of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While on paper, freedom of information laws are up-to-date in almost all countries in the region, implementation is patchy at best and has grown worse since governments clamped down on the flow of information with the onset of the coronavirus.

Together with journalists, public information officers and colleagues from Open Government Partnership we will reflect on the findings of BIRN’s tracking institutional transparency report and offer recommendations on how to make our institutions open and accountable.

Registration form will be available here soon.

Events in August and in the fall will focus on investigative journalism and gender justice.

Glitched Online Registration System for COVID-19 Vaccination Confuses Croatia

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

As more doses of COVID-19 vaccines finally arrive in Croatia, problems continue when it comes to registration, especially through the national online platform, CijepiSe [Get vaccinated].

“I expected the CijepiSe platform to work because the pandemic has lasted such a long time,“ Mia Biberovic, executive editor at the Croatian tech website Netokracija, told BIRN.

“I assumed the preparations were done early enough,“ she said, concluding that alas, this was not the case. As a consequence, she noted, a small number of people who applied online for a jab are being invited to get vaccinated.

For days, media have reported on problems with the platform, which cost 4.4 million kuna, or about 572,000 euros. On Friday, media reported that the data of the first 4,000 people who applied for vaccination via the platform during its test phase in February had been deleted.

The health ministry then denied reports about the deletion, and said the data relevant for making vaccination appointments had not connected in the case of 200 citizens who booked vaccinations during the test trial.

“The problem is, first, that the test version came when it [the system] was not functional yet. Second, [in the test phase] there were no remarks about the protection of users’ data, i.e. how the user data left there would be used,” Biberovic, who was also among those who applied during the test trial, noted.

“As far as I understood, the data was not deleted but could not be seen anywhere because it was incomplete … So they are not deleted, but again, they are not usable, which is even more bizarre,“ Biberovic added. “This is certainly a risk because citizens do not know how their data is being used.”

Vaccination appointments in Croatia can be ordered through the CijepiSe online platform, a call centre or via general practitioners, and all those who apply should be put on a single list. However, direct contact with a doctor has turned out to be the best way to get a vaccination appointment.

The ministry on Saturday said 198,274 citizens have been registered via the CijepiSe platform, of whom 45,416 have been vaccinated. But around 40,000 of these were not invited through the platform but by direct invitation of general practitioners.

Zvonimir Sostar, head of the Zagreb-based Andrija Stampar Teaching Institute of Public Health, stated on Saturday that the platform was not functioning in the capital, and that they would change the vaccination registration system, advising citizens to register via general practitioners.

Shortly after, the ministry promised that “everyone registered in the CijepiSe system will receive their vaccination appointment”.

“Maybe the platform is not functioning the way we wanted, but it functions well enough to cope with the challenges of vaccination. I read in the papers that the system of vaccination has collapsed. That’s not true! We are increasing the daily number of vaccinations,” Health Minister Vili Beros said on Sunday.

However, the Conflict of Interest Commission, an independent state body tasked with preventing conflicts of interest between private and public interests in the public sector, confirmed on Tuesday that it has opened a case against Beros. It comes after the media reported that the minister has ties to the company that designed the CijepiSe platform. The minister denies any wrongdoing.

Kosovo Media Criticise Call for State Regulation of Online Content

Posted on by BIRD

The Press Council of Kosovo, PCK, and the Association of Journalists of Kosovo, AJK, on Wednesday voiced concern over the proposed regulation of online media content under the Law on the Independent Media Commission, IMC, deeming it a violation of “international rules of journalism”.

The IMC is an independent state body that regulates, manages, and oversees TV broadcasting in Kosovo but now it has said it wants video production on local websites added to its jurisdiction. Print media are already monitored by the PCK.

The PCK is a self-regulatory body formed by the print media in Kosovo, which is recognized by the Assembly of Kosovo through the Law on Defamation and Insult. Rulings that the PCK issues for parties and the media are “respected and valued by local courts in cases where they decide for defamation and insult”.

“Each of the media should be held accountable for their actions before state bodies, based on relevant laws, but initially no one can better assess their ethics than the media themselves, or professionals of the field,” the PCK and AJK said in a joint press release.

The reaction comes after the IMC head, Xhevat Latifi, said a new law on the IMC should include audio-visual content of websites within its auspices.

Latifi said this at a presentation of the IMC’s Annual Report for 2020 to parliament’s Committee on Local Government, Regional Development and Media on Tuesday. “We are witnessing a toxic state of media vocabulary in Kosovo,” Latifi said, justifying the initiative.

Later he told BIRN that the initiative was not his own and explained it as “concern of society”.

“I have stated that portals which deal with audio-visual production would best be included in the new law; not all portals, only these which deal with audio-visual parts. It is only a request. We are only measuring the public, their concerns. I have presented it as a concern of society, we cannot say this is my opinion or IMC position,” he said.

The Press Council and journalists’ associations deem the idea dangerous.

“Initiatives to control and evaluate ethics for print and online media by a state organisation are harmful and do not help the media and journalists,” their press release said.

Albania Prosecutors Investigate Socialists’ Big-Brother-Style Database

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

Albania’s Special Structure Against Corruption and Organized Crime has summoned Andi Bushati and Armand Shkullaku, owners and editors of Lapsi.al news website, for questioning about a database, purportedly created by the Socialist Party, which contains the names of 910,000 voters in the Tirana region, along with personal data, including employment and family background records in what critics call a massive tracking system.

Bushati said prosecutors asked him where the information came from, and said he had refused to reveal his source, calling the meeting “a short meeting without much substance” while suggesting that the prosecutors should instead investigate how the personal data of the citizens ended up in the hands of a political party.

The prosecutors have not inspected any party office or commented publicly on what they are investigating.

The news about the database revealed last Sunday sent waves across the political spectrum and the population.

Ruling Socialist Party officials acknowledge that the database exists, but insist the data was provided voluntarily by citizens. They have also claimed that the published excerpts are not theirs.

Socialist parliamentary Group Taulant Balla immediately called the news “Lies!”

“The Socialist Party has built its database over years in door-to-door communication with the people,” he added. Days later, he claimed that the database published was not the one belonging to the Socialist Party.

Edi Rama, the Prime Minister, has acknowledged that his party has a “system of patronage” of voters but said their database is more complex and that the one leaked is probably an old one. Other Socialists have denied that the leaked database is theirs at all.

The opposition Democratic Party claims the data included in the database was stolen by the Socialist Party via the government service website E-Albania, where people apply for different services.

Many citizens who have had access to the database claim the data there are those they supplied to state institutions, and say the database seems well updated.

This E-Albania website was used by the government of Prime Minister Rama to issue permission to go outside during the national lockdown in spring 2020. In their forms, citizens had to provide phone numbers and email addresses.

The database, which BIRN had seen, contains some 910,000 entries of names, addresses, birthday, personal ID cards, employment and other data.

For each voter, a party official known as “patronazhist” a word derived from French patronage, is assigned. If they want to know where somebody works, a search in the database can provide that information.

For each voter, there is data on how they voted in the past and what their likely preference is today. In a separate column titled “comments”, party officials write notes on voters.

In one, a party official notes that “the voter requested employment of his wife” while in another, “the voter didn’t thank [the party] for obtaining his house deeds].

Property issues are widespread in Albania and various governments have been criticized for handing over ownership titles as electoral campaign bribes. The issue of such deeds in elections is currently forbidden.

In several cases, officials noted that some voters do not participate in elections because they are “Jehovah Witnesses,” or “extremist Muslims who are not permitted by religion to vote”.

In one case, the comment indicates that voters’ social media pages are checked by officials: “By investigating his Facebook profile, we can conclude he votes for SP,” a note reads while in another case it reads: “This one has previously voted for PDIU party; should be kept under monitoring.”

A note for a voter identified as business owner reads: “We should contact him for his employees”. In another case: The mother of the voter is employed in the municipality”.

Even family conflicts do not escape the observing eye of the party: “Xxx is relative of xxx but they are not on speaking terms,” a note reads.

The Albanian Helsinki Committee, a rights group based in Tirana, underlined that systematic monitoring of voters by a political party may violate the secrecy of the ballot and is especially concerning if done without a voter’s consent.

On Friday, 12 rights organisations called on the authorities to investigate the matter after indicating that at least the law on the Protection of Personal Data had been violated.

“This case is the illegal collection, elaboration and distribution of personal data of some 1 million citizens without their consent,” the statement reads.

While scores of citizens are interested to know which Socialist Party official is tracking them, Big Brother Albanian style apparently does not lack a note of comedy.

In the database, Socialist Party head and PM Rama, is shown as a voter who works at the Councils of Ministers and is under the “patronage” of Elvis Husha, a party official. Husha is under patronage of another party official.

Journalist Andi Bushati, who first exposed the database, said chances are slim that the prosecutors will do their work. “I don’t really believe that the prosecutors will find the truth of this. When a crime appears, it remains without author,” he commented.

Terrifying Twitter: Slovenia’s Marshall Twito and his ‘Fake’ Friends

Posted on by BIRD

When a group of Slovenian researchers, rights advocates and investigative journalists teamed up last year to probe the activities of 27 suspicious Twitter accounts, one of them registered to Jordana Caric, ‘Joca’.

Caric, it turned out, was particularly popular with Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa, known to his critics as Marshall Twito, a nod to Josip Broz Tito, the man who ran socialist Yugoslavia for 35 years, and to Jansa’s fondness for Twitter as a means of conveying government policy and denouncing his opponents.

According to the study conducted by the institute ‘Danes je nov dan’ [Today is a New Day] and the investigative outlet ‘Pod crto’ [The Bottom Line], the “vast majority” of Caric’s Twitter posts were in praise of Jansa’s right-wing Slovenian Democratic Party, SDS, and scornful of its critics.

Between January and November last year, Jansa shared Caric’s tweets 30 times, despite the fact that, according to Danes je nov dan and Pod crto, Caric’s profile picture was lifted from a Brazilian Facebook user and the account, like the other 26, is almost certainly fake.

That the fake Caric account should enjoy such high-profile retweets is indicative of what Tadej Strok of Danes je nov dan says is the prevalence of so-called ‘astroturfing’ in Slovenia, a deceptive practice designed to create the impression of widespread grassroots support for, in this case, the SDS and the unpopularity of its opponents.

The 27 Twitter accounts – each of which used a stolen or computer-generated profile picture – “were involved in very extensive propaganda,” Strok told BIRN, “only promoting and publishing content that ideologically links to the ruling party.”

“Let’s say that the fake profile tweets something, a public figure retweets that without any critical distance… and then it is suddenly more important news and maybe it’s going to get reposted” in SDS-affiliated media.

Jansa might use the disclaimer ‘retweets are not endorsements’, but politicians like him “use fake profiles as a proxy,” said Strok, “to spread information or words that they know would put them in more trouble if they tweeted it themselves.”

“He retweets more than 100 tweets a day,” Strok said. “Of course they’re endorsements.”

Trump tactics


A mobile phone displays the suspended status of the Twitter account of former US President Donald J. Trump. Photo: EPA-EFE/MICHAEL REYNOLDS.

Marko Milosavljevic, a professor of journalism and media policy at the University of Ljubljana, says that, in a way, “Twitter has become the Official Gazette in Slovenia.”

The social media platform, used by roughly 100,000 of Slovenia’s two million people, shows “what the prime minister thinks, what he will do and what moves he will make, who are his enemies, what is his attitude towards different political actors,” Milosavljevic told BIRN.

And Jansa takes no prisoners.

In mid-March, five international media watchdogs wrote to the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, to warn of what they called Jansa’s “Trumpian style tactics” of attacking journalists on Twitter and dismissing critical reporting as “fake news”.

Sixty-two year-old Jansa, a fixture on the Slovenian political scene since independence from Yugoslavia in 1991, is currently involved in a defamation case stemming from a tweet he posted in 2016 calling two public television journalists “washed-up prostitutes”. He was given a three-month suspended prison sentence in November 2018 but a higher court ordered a retrial in 2019, which is ongoing.

Political analysts, public figures, protesters and those who challenge the government’s COVID-19 measures often find themselves the target of smear campaigns. And Jansa’s party colleagues get involved too, often with the help of fake profiles.

Danes je nov dan and Pod crto rolled out their findings in February and March this year. But it was only on February 22, when an SDS lawmaker called Alenka Jeraj inadvertently revealed her use of a fake Twitter account, that ‘astroturfing’ really hit the headlines in Slovenia.

Due to the word-limit on Twitter, Jeraj posted a comment in two parts, but posted the first under a fake account under the name ‘Kopriva’ and only the second part under her own name. Jeraj confirmed she had created the account and subsequently closed it.

It was the Kopriva scandal that prompted other media to report on the issue, said Anze Voh Bostic, an investigative journalist at Pod crto. Then came the attacks.

“What we analysed then happened to us,” Voh Bostic told BIRN. “First, attacks on Twitter, then an article in their media and then a few more tweets. It lasted maybe a week.”

Making hate speech acceptable


A street “exhibition” of PM Janez Jansa’s tweets entitled “Fits and Delusions of Marshal Twito”, launched by the Slovenian anti-govt protest movement in November, Ljubljana. Photo: Protestna ljudska skupscina.

Besides the 27 accounts deemed fake, Strok, Voh Bostic and their colleagues had also looked at online attacks against seven prominent individuals who had spoken out against Jansa’s government or his party.

They tracked down 307 accounts that participated in at least one of the attacks via tweet or retweet. Some of the accounts were most likely fake, while others belonged to senior members of the SDS, including Jansa. All of them followed at least six of the 27 fake accounts.

Such communication, from such prominent public figures, contributes to the normalisation of hate speech, said Voh Bostic, citing the example of the January 6 attack on the US Congress by supporters of then US President Donald Trump.

“In a way, Twitter is also to blame for the attack on Congress,” said Voh Bostic. “It gives some legitimacy to this kind of speech, that it’s normal.”

Voh Bostic said that one target of the attacks told him he had been harassed on the street.

“He was walking down the street and a couple of times they spat in his face,” he said. “It’s just a step away from being beaten.”

Voh Bostic said that, while the SDS, was the focus of their study, “it doesn’t mean that other parties do not use such practices”. But the ruling party is most visible and most aggressive.

According to Milosavljevic, the use of fake profiles cannot be attributed to a few over-enthusiastic party footsoldiers, but is “a systematic relationship in which many people are also paid” – the kind of system BIRN has reported previously on in Serbia.

An SDS spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

The government’s communications office, UKOM, told BIRN that via social media it “highlights and draws attention to the problem of hate speech, distinguishing between hate speech and offensive and critical speech.”

It noted what it said were “calls for death” made during anti-government protests in 2020. Some protesters adopted the slogan ‘Smrt Jansizmu’, or Death to Jansism, a play on the Yugoslav Partisan motto ‘Smrt fasizmu, sloboda narodu’, meaning Death to fascism, freedom to the people. Critics of the government say the slogan calls for the death of Jansa’s politics, not of the man.

Alone with their phones


Slovenian Prime Minister and leader of the Slovenian Democratic Party, SDS, Janez Jansa. Photo: EPA-EFE/Szilard Koszticsak HUNGARY OUT

In March, Interior Minister Ales Hojs, a member of the co-ruling New Slovenia, NSi, dodged a question on public television about why politicians use fake Twitter profiles. Instead, he complained that the government is not given enough airtime on traditional media, particularly Radio-Television Slovenia.

“The fact is that the right side of the political scene has to use social media to attract people,” Hojs said.

Milosavljevic, however, said that, while politicians try to “behave nicely” in media appearances and press conference, they feel much more freedom on social networks.

“On Twitter, they are alone with their phones and then they write what first comes to their mind, even if it is very aggressive, vulgar, offensive,” he said. As Trump demonstrated, aggressive communication garners more attention on both Twitter and within society, and so “can be effective in that regard,” Milosavljevic told BIRN.

“Unfortunately, it’s also effective in dividing that society.”

In Offering ‘Hate-Free’ Social Media, Old Worries Haunt New Apps

Posted on by Ivana Jeremic

For years, London-based writer and artist Mary Morgan has used social media to raise awareness and engage in debate, particularly Twitter and Instagram. Until the hate speech became too much.

“Anyone who spends time on Twitter knows it can be an absolutely horrible place,” said Morgan, whose work focuses on body politics, or the practices and policies through which powers of society regulate the human body.

So she began exploring alternative apps, settling on Clubhouse, an audio-based social network where users can join rooms and listen to, participate or moderate discussions on any topic that might interest them.

“The power of Clubhouse is that you can choose who you speak to. You can’t just randomly start messaging people with hate. I think that’s a real power to the platform,” Morgan told BIRN.

“Especially when it comes to activism, like-minded individuals and people who want to participate and learn will be drawn to houses and clubs, meaning we can all speak to and learn from each other in an environment that is encouraging of that.”

Launched in April 2020, Clubhouse currently boasts more than eight million users worldwide.

And it’s not alone in winning new users turned off by the inability of social media giants to find a way to filter out offensive content on their platforms – Mastodon, MeWe and CloutHub are just a few of the emerging names benefitting from a backlash against the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Experts, however, warn that while these alternative apps might be motivated by high ideals, they face the same issues that have dogged the giants – how to provide transparency, avoid hate speech and protect privacy, while also making money.

“I understand the desire that people have to move to new platforms,” said Ayden Ferdeline, a Berlin-based public interest technologist.

“We desperately need more spaces for lawful speech, but we need these new platforms to be more transparent than Facebook or Twitter are, about how they operationalise their policies and procedures, and to be designed from day one to uphold and respect fundamental human rights.”

Turned off Twitter


 A mobile phone displays the suspended status of the Twitter account of Donald J. Trump, 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/MICHAEL REYNOLDS

Skopje-born Katarina P. spent 11 years on Twitter as an active member of the Twitter community in North Macedonia. Under an alias, Katarina, who declined to give her surname, used her profile to follow and comment on the events of any day in her home country and the wider Balkan region, engaging in sometimes heated debates.

Then, in February this year, Twitter suspended Katarina’s profile, without any specific explanation.

“I believe I got suspended because I came into a conflict with another Twitter account that was promoting misogyny through quasi-Christian Orthodox theology,” Katarina recalled.  “After my impulsive reaction to these tweets, my account got suspended.”

She appealed to Twitter’s Support Team, but, after a generic response to say they would look into it her case, Katarina never heard back. She assumed she was shut down based on the complaints of “religious fanatics”, and was frustrated at the lack of communication from Twitter.

Stung by criticism over how social media was used in the storming of the US Capitol by Donald Trump supporters on January 6, Twitter and Facebook appear to have adopted more restrictive approaches to what can and cannot be posted on their platforms.

Experts, however, say that the use of Artificial Intelligence has resulted in a litany of errors, with AI lacking the required contextual and nuanced analysis to distinguish strong criticism from defamation and radical political opinions from expressions of hatred and racism or indictment to violence, particularly in languages spoken by far fewer people than, say, English, French, German or Russian.

Katarina believes she is a victim of this, and is already looking for an alternative platform where she can engage in debate.

“I liked Twitter since it was unique for the microblogging opportunities it offered,” she said. “I hope that a new network with similar content might appear soon. And I won’t lie when I say that I am looking forward to it.”

Friendlier Facebooks


A Facebook logo. Photo: EPA-EFE/Julien de Rosa

Clubhouse might still be in its beta stage, but it has attracted huge attention.

“It is a completely new and different app, and I see it as great replacement for all of the podcasts, with the addition that you can not only listen to them, but also actively engage in the discussion,” said Marija Andrejska, a digital marketing specialist in Skopje who began using Clubhouse this year. “I believe this is one fantastic feature that has never been seen before.”

The app has an air of exclusivity to it that not everyone likes, however. As an invite-only app, a new user has to be invited by an existing member to join, and it’s only available for those using iPhones.

“On the downside, I think it’s a pretty ‘elitist’ app, and I don’t like that,” Andrejska told BIRN. “Since it functions only by invites and it’s only for iPhone users, it can create closed, in a way segregated groups, which can be dangerous in the long run. Therefore, I think that you cannot really use Clubhouse with the same intensity as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or even TikTok.”

Turkish journalist Dilek Kutuk said Clubhouse was a great place to exchange ideas, “especially in Turkey”, where society is deeply polarised along political lines.

“I see many voice chat rooms in Clubhouse where people talk and share their opinions, as opposed to Twitter, where all you can see is fights between those that have different political opinions,” Kutuk told BIRN.

MeWe has also seen a recent spike in user numbers, particularly in January.

Launched in 2012, the network says it is built on “trust, control and love”, and represents a secure and private alternative to Facebook with more than 16 million worldwide logging in to it use its newsfeed, private text and video chats and groups.

Then there’s CloutHub, considered an alternative to Facebook and Twitter. With some 255,000 users, CloutHub describes itself as a “non-biased social network for people engaged in meaningful civic, social and political issues.” It has also seen a growth in its user base since the beginning of the year.

Mastodon, a decentralised open-source platform,  is another under-the-radar alternative to Twitter. Users say it offers much better tools to protect privacy and fight online harassment than Twitter. Launched in 2016, the platform has more than two million users worldwide, and has been billed as a model for a “friendlier social network” dedicated to keeping out hateful content.

New apps under scrutiny


Illustration. Photo: Unsplash/Freestocks

But while such apps might bill themselves as ‘friendlier’, hate-free alternatives to Twitter and Facebook, experts say they face the same questions regarding privacy, transparency and how they moderate what’s being said, written or posted on their platforms.

“It is understandable why tech companies want to cleanse their platforms of mis- and dis- information, but neither their human moderators nor their technical measures are able to do so in a an accurate and human rights-respecting manner,” said Ferdeline.

Marcin de Kaminski, security and innovation director of Civil Rights Defenders, a Sweden-based international human rights organisation, said there is already concern.

“From our perspective, Clubhouse does allow users to speak freely, yes. But they also compromise on their users’ privacy, and there are no safeguards when it comes to protecting users from marginalised or targeted communities when it comes to verbal attacks, threats or slander,” said De Kaminski.

“Users that choose to use Clubhouse need to understand the risks, both technical and socio-legal.”

He warned of being blinded by the novelty of new features.

“It is easy to get mesmerized by new fascinating features and the possibility to have seamless voice chats with friends and colleagues may be tempting during the isolation of the ongoing pandemic,” De Kaminski told BIRN.

“However, Clubhouse has really made it possible to ask oneself very important questions – which data is harvested when you use the service and who has access to that data?”

Nor does being the new kid on the block necessarily protect against cyber attacks.

On Saturday, a report said that the personal data of 1.3 million Clubhouse users had been posted online on a popular hacker forum. Clubhouse denied being hacked and said that the data “is all public profile information from our app, which anyone can access via the app or out API [application programming interface].”

Privacy concerns have already prompted many users to migrate from messaging apps such as WhatsApp to the likes of Signal or Telegram, which claim to offer better privacy features.

Privacy and data protection strategist Lourdes M. Turrecha said any privacy failures could cost social media startups big.

“These privacy concerns are serious enough to create trouble for Clubhouse in a world where data protection enforcements have teeth – note the recent $650 million class action settlement following the $5 billion Federal Trade Commission’s fine against social media predecessor, Facebook,” said Turrecha.

“While these figures may seem like slaps on the wrist for a company like Facebook, a pre-revenue startup like Clubhouse doesn’t have the war chest to chalk these up as a cost of doing business, despite its $110 million in funding.”

Turrecha warned of the risks of users “trading” their privacy for greater freedom of speech.

“While neither speech nor privacy rights are absolute, I caution against pitting the two against each other through false tradeoffs,” she said. “We should demand technologies that protect both speech and privacy rights.”

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