The head of the Moldovan Information and Security Service SIS, Alexandru Musteata, told media on Monday that he has signed an order to block 31 websites for spreading pro-Russian disinformation.
Twenty-one of the sites are directly related to Russia, Musteata said. These include the most popular Russian-language websites in Moldova, including the sites of Russian news agency Tass and newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda.
“The content of the information disseminated by these sites in the public arena can generate tensions or social conflicts,” he said.
Media NGOs criticised the decision, saying the SIS needs to put forward substantial evidence for the shutdowns.
The Audiovisual Council, Moldova’s media regulatory body, also suspended the broadcast licences of six TV stations – Orizont TV, ITV, Prime, Publika TV, Canal 2 and Canal 3. The first two are owned through intermediaries by fugitive Moldovan oligarch Ilan Shor and the other four by another fugitive oligarch, Vladimir Platohniuc.
The suspension of the TV stations’ licences came after a recommendation from the SIS. However, the management of the suspended stations accused the government of unprecedented attacks on the media, arguing that there are no legal arguments for the move. Shor also accused the ruling party of closing down the opposition’s media outlets.
Several media NGOs such as the Centre for Independent Journalism, the Electronic Press Association, RISE Moldova and the Access-Info Centre also expressed concern over the licence suspensions and website closures in the absence of extensive explanations of the factual and legal circumstances that justify the measures.
“The signatory NGOs ask the authorities to communicate without delay the arguments and evidence that were the basis of the decision of the Commission for Exceptional Situations to close these sites and to suspend the license of the six television stations,” the NGOs said in a statement.
But President Maia Sandu argued that the measures were necessary to defend democratic values and protect the country from Russian interference in the electoral process in Moldova.
The Moldovan media landscape is crowded with Russian-language media, although ethnic Russians represent just four per cent of the country’s population.
Moldovan President Maia Sandu on Monday announced the launch of legislative initiatives to create an institution to combat Russian propaganda and better protect citizens from manipulation.
“We must defend Moldova from informational attacks and increase citizens’ resistance to misinformation. The national centre for informational defence and combating propaganda – PATRIOT – will have the mission of coordinating the state’s policy in informational security and combating disinformation at the national level,” Sandu said.
She added that the text of the legislative initiative will be published on Tuesday on the website of the presidency for consultations. The draft bill will be sent to parliament by the end of June.
“Those who launch and spread falsehoods want to cause fear, hatred and division. Day by day, the Kremlin and criminal groups launch hybrid attacks and use the weapon of propaganda to sow hatred in Moldova, to weaken our trust in each other and our trust in our state,” Sandu said.
She claimed that the Kremlin spends huge sums to spread lies in the media and on social networks and “finances criminal groups with dirty money that try to stop us from our way of developing the country”.
Sandu’s announcement comes after the foreign ministers of the European Union last Monday agreed to send a new civilian mission to Moldova to strengthen its security against hybrid threats in the context of Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.
The EU mission was created on April 24 to improve Moldova’s resistance to hybrid threats, including energy security, so that it can counteract the manipulation of information or foreign interference.
The EU mission will be led by Cosmin Dinescu, Romania’s ambassador to Latvia and Lithuania. The commander will be the director general of the European External Action Service for planning and civil operations, Stefano Tomat, in charge of civil operations.
“Attempts to destabilise Moldova have increased significantly since the beginning of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and represent a direct threat to the stability and security of the EU’s external borders,” stated the EU Foreign Affairs Council.
On the other hand, Moscow has accused the EU of trying to exert more influence oveer Moldova through this new mission.
Moldova is seen as one of the least resilient countries to Russian propaganda, which aims to undermine people’s confidence in their leadership, destabilise the country and divert Moldova from the European path.
In the wake of regional and global political uncertainties, fake news in Kosovo has gone to another level, a BIRN-organised conference on the eve of International Fact-Checking Day, April 2, concluded on Thursday.
The conference gathered media people, politicians and diplomats to showcase the danger fake news pose in a pluralistic media environment and elaborate ways on how to fight the phenomenon.
Presenting the preliminary findings of a report on disinformation that BIRN in Kosovo is conducting, Kreshnik Gashi, editor-in-chief of news site KALLXO.com said that from October 2022 to March 2023 a total of 315 fake information articles had been detected, with 33 of them related to Kosovo’s interethnic relations and national security and 30 related to the dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia.
“During the research, we saw that producers of fake news are deceiving even the computer … These are not dubious news, they are fake. They are published and verified as fake,” Gashi said.
“We have managed to understand who the source of these information is. In 169 of them, they appear to be people who have political knowledge, who are influencers, and who have produced fake information distributed on social media,” he added.
Kosovo’s Prime Minister, Albin Kurti, said fact-checking was a potential “vaccine” against the “virus” of fake news.
“Verification techniques are expected to be a vaccine against the virus of fake news. It’s similar to the fake news on COVID vaccines which flooded the world three years ago, where our population was a victim, too. But to produce a vaccine against the virus of fake news, we need a sociology of television and media anthropology,” Kurti said.
The head of the European Office in Kosovo, Tomas Szunyog, said advances in the internet and digital age had increased dramatically their impact.
“It is our collective responsibility to fight disinformation and explore new strategies and partnerships to promote professional journalism and media literacy and ensure access to verified information, transparency, and accountability. The EU will continue supporting Kosovo in this regard,” Szunyog said.
Antonello De Riu, Italian ambassador to Kosovo, said that behind fake news, the wider strategy was to manipulate public opinion and erode the stability of states and their democratic institutions.
“In this environment, civil society organizations and media play a central role in addressing disinformation’s growing impact on democracy, positively contributing to shaping policy making, improving platform responses and enhancing citizen knowledge and engagement,” he said.
In its annual report for Kosovo, the European Commission noted that the country has “some benefits” from a pluralistic and lively media environment.
“However, concerns remain regarding public smear campaigns and threats and physical attacks on journalists. The lack of financial self-sustainability leaves the media, including the public broadcaster, vulnerable to political and business interests,” the Commission said.
The international media watchdog Reporters Without Borders in its latest report said that despite its small size and division along ethnic lines, Kosovo has a pluralistic and vivid media market.
But it added that although the media hold the authorities accountable, journalists are regularly targeted by political attacks.
While Kosovo Serb barricades blocking roads to two border crossing points to the border with Serbia are being removed, disinformation about the conflict is spreading on social media and several media platforms worldwide.
Kosovo is currently trending on Twitter with over 250,000 tweets.
Twitter users, mainly from Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, Spain, Serbia, Kosovo, and Albania, are all sharing disinformation of an alleged “war” that has broken out between Kosovo and Serbia or sharing propaganda against Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, declared in 2008.
Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko’s tweets on Sunday received thousands of likes, retweets, and comments after he wrote: “Ukraine is ready to act with our troops on the ground. Serbia is trying to start an aggressive war.”
In fact, the NATO-led peace-keeping mission in Kosovo, KFOR, on the grounds 1999, has declared its readiness to intervene “if stability is jeopardized in the North of Kosovo”. No Ukrainian troops are on the ground in Kosovo, however. Nor has Ukraine recognized Kosovo’s sovereignty.
If Serbia invades #Kosovo, we should defend the Kosovars. 🇺🇦 is ready to act with our troops on the ground. 🇷🇸 is trying to start an aggressive war. Precisely according to Putin’s method. As I said, #Serbia is Putin’s Trojan horse in Europe. War anywhere in the world is terrible.
— Oleksiy Goncharenko (@GoncharenkoUa) July 31, 2022
James Ker-Lindsay, visiting professor at London School of Economics LSE who focuses on conflict, peace and security in South East Europe, condemned Goncharenko’s tweet, asking him not to “make matters worse”.
“This is an irresponsible and unnecessary comment. And it also raises all sorts of complex questions that I’m not sure Ukraine is ready to answer. If you really believe in peace, don’t become part of the problem in the Balkans. Focus on home” Ker-Lindsay wrote.
Kosovo Serbs erected barricades consisting of trucks filled with gravel blocked roads to two border crossing points with Serbia before being removed on Monday.
They were erected after Kosovo’s government moved to implement so-called reciprocity measures with Serbia over vehicle licence plates and IDs for one month, before agreeing to delay the measures if the barricades are removed.
“Crossing points in Jarinje and Bernjak remain closed,” PM Albin Kurti told media on Monday, adding “all border points are issuing the [new] 90-day exit-entrance document. Up to 1,501 citizens have been provided with this document, waiting 20 seconds”.
The Kosovo government decided in June that every person wanting to cross the state border using personal IDs issued by Serbian authorities will now be issued temporary declaration forms valid for 90 days that replace the Serbian-issued document.
The decision reciprocates Serbian authorities’ non-recognition of Kosovo-issued IDs, introducing the same measure as Serbia implements toward Kosovo citizens.
A similar escalation occurred in September 2021, after Kosovo’s government required vehicles with Serbian licence plates to switch to temporary Kosovo-issued ones at the border. Kosovo citizens who have licence plates with the letters RKS, short for Republic of Kosovo, have had to do this for years on the border with Serbia.
Photos from last year are being shared on social media as if they happened on Sunday, On July 31, 2022. Albanian Muslim preacher Elvis Naci with 1.2 million followers on Instagram, shared a photo of Kosovo Special forces moving to the barricades closer to the border from September 2021 captioned: “God protect the Albanians of Kosovo as well as the brave men of the special unit who establish peace and security,”
Barricades in the village of Rudar, on the road to Serb-majority Kosovo municipality of Leposavic, close to the border with Serbia, August 1, 2022. Photo: Shkodrane Dakaj/BIRN
Ukrainian MP Goncharenko’s tweet was not the only one suggesting a war already broke out between Kosovo and Serbia.
Turkish writer Huseyin Hakkı Kahveci tweeted in Turkish: “War broke out between Serbia and Kosovo. FIRE STARTED IN THE troubled BALKANS”.
His tweet, which received over 200 likes and over 80 retweets, claimed that “Kosovo Special Forces sent additional troops to the Jarinje border crossing with Serbia. We are in the period when the war begins to spread to Europe via the BALKANS and to Russia via the CAUCASUS”.
Nebojsa Malic, a Bosnian Serb columnist for Anti-War site, went on Twitter to say that “NATO’s favorite stooge ‘Kosovo’ is trying to start a fight with Serbia right now,” claiming this explained how “well the conflict in Ukraine is going for the West”. His tweet received over 2,000 likes.
Alongside posts on war breaking out between Kosovo and Serbia, many social media users, as well as media platforms, shared unconfirmed information of shots fired between Kosovo and Serbian forces.
Twitter account ConflictTr, with over 200,000 followers, tweeted: “Kosovo soldiers injured in the clashes on the Serbia-Kosovo border are transferred to Mitrovica state hospital”.
Several Kosovo media such as Nacionale and Indeks Online among others reported that a Kosovo police official and two Serbian citizens had been injured by gunfire between police and the citizens that erected the barricades. This was not true. Nacionale later deleted its news.
Kosovo Interior Minister Xhelal Svecla told the media on Monday that “11 citizens have been injured and received the necessary treatment and some citizens’ and police vehicles have been damaged by armed criminal structures”. Kosovo police are investigating.
However, no armed conflict has yet erupted between Kosovo Special Police and Serbian police or military forces.
Several Twitter accounts also shared “Kosovo is Serbia” claims, which are often part of Serbian nationalist discourse.
Twitter user Inga Canarias, with over 1.5 thousand followers, retweeted a photo of a mural that writes “Kosovo is Serbia” with the description in Spanish: “Since there seems to be trouble between Serbia and Kosovo, it will have to be said once again that Kosovo is an integral, inalienable part of Serbia.” Several Spanish accounts shared similar tweets.
Let’s be very clear, the Europeans pushed The Hague to arrest @HashimThaciRKS after 20 years of investigations simply because he was negotiating with Trump.
They have nothing on him and keep him held because of politics. It’s why ICTY should be dissolved.
The former US envoy under Donald Trump for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Richard Grenell, also joined the turmoil, mainly blaming Kosovo PM Albin Kurti for the situation but also sharing inaccurate information about former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci.
“Let’s be very clear, the Europeans pushed The Hague to arrest (former President) Hashim Thaci after 20 years of investigations simply because he was negotiating with (Donald) Trump,” he said.
“They have nothing on him and keep him held because of politics. It’s why ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal on Yugoslavia) should be dissolved,” Grenell said in one tweet, which received over 500 likes.
The second half of February was almost completely absorbed by the start of hostilities between Russia and Ukraine, coinciding with a significant rise in cases of disinformation and fake news.
In Serbia, Bosnia and Hungary, several cases of disinformation on the Ukrainian conflict were reported. In the latter two countries, online manipulations were motivated by internal reasons, mainly to discredit political opponents.
Nationalist rhetoric in Bosnia and Herzegovina meanwhile continued to fuel online tensions. In North Macedonia, the arrival of members of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group gave rise to episodes of intolerance with the local community. Cyberattacks and phishing scams systematically hit public and private IT servers in Serbia, North Macedonia and Croatia.
Misinformation on Ukraine, political attacks, spike in Serbia, Bosnia, Hungary
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, online media and local newspapers have been almost completely consumed by the war.
Social media platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook have become powerful tools of political activism and propaganda that in many cases ended up amplifying misinformation on the Russian invasion.
A Ukrainian serviceman stands guard in downtown Kyiv (Kiev), Ukraine, 03 March 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/ZURAB KURTSIKIDZE
In Serbia, the Twitter account of Youth of JAZAS, an NGO committed to HIV support and prevention, was taken over by an unknown person on February 25. Tweets from the hacked account compared Ukraine to AIDS and claimed that Russia was “the cure”. The next day, after regaining control of the account, Youth of JAZAS apologised for the tweets.
In another episode, several web portals in Serbia made false claims about a change to the Zagreb Philharmonic program. Online media wrongly linked the changes of the program concerning the works of Russian composer Tchaikovsky to the war in Ukraine.
On February 25, Dušanka Majkić, an MP in Bosnia’s parliament from the main Bosnian Serb party, the Alliance of Independent Social Democrat Party, SNSD, tweeted that Bosnia could suffer the same consequences as attacked Ukraine if it joins NATO. “In March 2021, Moscow promised to react if Bosnia takes any further steps towards NATO. Don’t say you haven’t been warned,” the tweet read.
In Hungary, fake news and falsehoods on the Russo-Ukrainian War led to political clashes and smear campaigns targeting political opponents.
Pro-government media in the country struggle to move away from their former pro-Russian narrative. On the one hand, public media, pro-government media and some pundits uncritically reported untrue statements from the Kremlin about Ukraine. These include that Ukrainian troops entered Russia first, that a Ukrainian nation does not exist, and that Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky is comparable to Hitler.
Even after the Russian attacks began, some media still claimed Russia had no plans to attack Ukraine. Various Facebook pages linked to the ruling Fidesz party are also still spreading Russian propaganda. On the other hand, both government politicians and pro-government media have falsely claimed that opposition politicians want to send soldiers to Ukraine, plunging Hungary into war with Russia.
Finally, an item of disinformation about the Ukraine conflict has been widely shared online in both Bosnia and Hungary. Hundreds of thousands of users have watched a video on Facebook in less than 24 hours, apparently showing a military plane being attacked by air defence. The post suggests that the video is footage from the war in Ukraine. In reality, the video was from a war simulation computer game. Raskrinkavanje fact-checking portal clarified that the video was from the video game Arma 3, a realistic game released in September 2013 simulating military conflicts.
Religion and nationalism spur online attacks and hate speech in Bosnia and North Macedonia
Ethnic and political tensions, always characteristic of the Bosnian environment are being exacerbated by episodes of nationalist rhetoric in parliament. Aside from Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik’s secessionist threats, his Croatian counterpart has added to tensions.
President of the presidency of Bosnia and Hercegovina Dragan Covic during the meeting with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (not pictured) in Belgrade, Serbia, 06 December 2017. Photo: EPA-EFE/KOCA SULEJMANOVIC
The main Bosnian Croat party, the Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, and its leader Dragan Covic, who in February blocked electoral reform in the country, have now threatened to block the October general election.
In North Macedonia, tensions with the local resident erupted following the arrival of members of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish group, Lev Tahor, in the northern city of Kumanovo in February, despite the authorities’ appeals for tolerance.
Worried about a possible worsening of the situation, the local police escorted 38 members of the sect to an undisclosed hotel, “for their own safety”, police told BIRN.
In another case, from February 22, authorities filed criminal charges against a woman from Ohrid after she disseminated hate speech on Facebook towards Lev Tahor. On social media, she called for the group to be “burned down together with the hotel” they were staying in.
In Croatia, Martina Mlinarević Sopta, Bosnia’s ambassador to the Czech Republic, was attacked and mocked by nationalists on a YouTube video released on February 24 after she criticized HDZ policies in Bosnia. In the video, titled “It’s not Masha’s fault she’s ours”, published on the Facebook page and YouTube channel of the local carnival in the southwestern Bosnian town of Ljubuški, the face of the ambassador appears at the centre of the screen with the Croatian flag and Jesus holding the Croatian coat-of-arms in the background.
Cyberattacks and phishing scams hit Serbia, North Macedonia and Croatia
Online environments continue to be systematically hit by computer frauds, phishing scams and other cyberattacks that put pressure on public IT servers in several countries.
Our annual digital rights report, Online Intimidation: Controlling the Narrative in the Balkans, noted that between August 2020 and August 2021, in Croatia alone, there were about 26 incidents of computer fraud out of a total of 103 cases reported from the region.
The logo of Italian banking group Intesa Sanpaolo is seen at a branch in Siena, Italy, 05 July 2018. Photo: EPA-EFE/MATTIA SEDDA
On February 18, the National CERT of Serbia warned Facebook users about a phishing campaign aimed at compromising their account credentials. Users were getting messages asking: “Are you in this video?” which also contained a malicious link. Also in Serbia, on 28 February, the local branch of Banca Intesa warned its customers of fraudulent emails allegedly coming from the bank with malicious attachments. In previous cases, the subject of such emails contained information about an alleged payment in euros.
In North Macedonia, after an incident on February 4 in which the well-known hacker group Powerful Greek Army claimed that it had hacked North Macedonia’s Ministry of Education, another hacking episode by the same group hit several banks.
The hacking group this time claimed they had attacked several banks and that access to the banks’ websites was made difficult or completely blocked. However, the national bank, NBRM, said it had intervened quickly and that the security and confidentiality of its data had been secured.
Finally, Croatia was also hit by an incident of cyber fraud on February 23, when the Regulatory Authority for Network Industries, HAKOM, reported receiving several calls from citizens saying they were getting suspicious calls from “Windows Support Centre”, telling them that their computers with Windows were causing problems.
The head of Kosovo’s Independent Media Commission IMC, has defended its decision on Saturday to ban the broadcasting of Russia Today and RT Documentary TV channels in Kosovo, saying it took the decision to prevent the spread of Russian propaganda following the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
The two channels are broadcasted in the Serb-run north of Kosovo by MTS, Serbia’s state telecom company. Serbia and Russia are close allies.
The head of the IMC, Faruk Rexhaj, told Prishtina Insight that it was important to counter misinformation about the war.
“We have appealed to the media to provide sources of information. The decision does not match a violation of media freedom, but measures must be taken not to spread misinformation,” he said.
He said Russia Today and RT Documentary were widely watched in Serb-majority municipalities in northern Kosovo. “Today we are on the ground and identifying all distribution operators, to see if there are other [Russian] channels on platforms,” he said.
According to him, the decision is not a permanent restriction but only temporary prevention, until the situation in Ukraine improves. As Russia’s assault on Ukraine continues, fears about what is being served to citizens through the media, and the security of the source of information, have grown.
“Taking into account that the security of the Republic of Kosovo is related to the fate and security of other democratic countries, the IMC considers it necessary and indispensable to take this decision,” the decision for the ban read.
On Sunday, the President of the European Commission, Ursula Von der Leyen, said Russian TV channels would be banned across the EU, attacking what she called “a media machine”.
“We will ban the Kremlin’s media machine in the EU. The state-owned Russia Today and Sputnik, and their subsidiaries, will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin’s war,” she wrote on Twitter. “We are developing tools to ban their toxic and harmful disinformation in Europe,” she added.
The IMC is responsible for regulating, managing and supervising the spectrum of broadcasting frequencies in Kosovo.
It licenses public and private broadcasters, determines and implements the broadcasting policy and regulates the rights, obligations and responsibilities of natural and legal persons who provide audio and audiovisual media services.
BIRN itself monitors the media in Kosovo, tracking information with unreliable sources about the attacks in Ukraine.
As fierce fighting continues in Ukraine, a meeting was scheduled to take place between leaders of both countries. Airstrikes have targeted several cities and overnight Russia bombed Chernihiv and Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said.
A report published on Tuesday by the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development, KIPRED, about the potential for Russian media disinformation to undermine Kosovo’s statehood urges the authorities to address UN member states with an appropriate strategy to counter it.
The executive director of the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development, Lulzim Peci, told a press conference that the authorities are doing nothing to counter what he called the “Russian diplomatic war against Kosovo”.
“The reactions of Kosovo’s institutions have come without a proper policy on how to act towards Russia and the same institutions have not built any narrative about the Russian state,” Peci said.
The report, entitled ‘Kosovo Observatory: Russian Diplomatic War and Media Disinformation’, analysed statements, press conferences, articles and other documents from Russia that were published from June 1 to August 15 this year.
Peci said the report calculated that “out of 500 news articles that directly or indirectly related to Kosovo, 96 or 19.2 per cent of them contained misinformation”.
According to the report, the largest number of articles containing misinformation were published by Sputnik Serbia (71 items), followed by TASS (nine), Russia Today (four), UNZ (four), Sputnik International (three), Russian Insider (two), The Duran (two) and Newsfront (one).
The report concludes that Russia is trying to undermine Kosovo’s statehood and Western engagement in Kosovo and the region, and to change the narratives about war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, thus undermining the foundations of international justice.
Russian media articles have also accused Kosovo of oppressing local Serbs and the Serbian Orthodox Church, and of disrespecting an agreement to establishing an Association of Serb-Majority Municipalities.
The report warns that a critical moment has come at the end of a moratorium agreed in Washington for Kosovo not to actively seek membership of international organisations and for Serbia not to campaign against Kosovo’s recognition.
“This moment can be used by Russia to work together with Serbia to implement an aggressive campaign for the derecognition of Kosovo,” the report says.
At first, journalist Tugay Can had no idea why he had been taken in for police questioning on March 25 last year in the Turkish port city of Izmir. Then cybercrime officers told him he was suspected of spreading fear and panic because of a report he wrote, published two days earlier, about COVID-19 outbreaks in two community health centres in the city that were subsequently quarantined.
“After I confirmed it with my sources, I reported the situation”, Can, who at the time worked for the local Izmir newspaper Iz Gazete, told BIRN.
Pressed to name his sources, Can refused. Hours of questioning resulted in a charge of spreading fake news and causing panic. The case was dropped several months later, but Can’s chilling experience was far from a one-off.
According to the media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders, Can was among 10 Turkish editors and reporters interrogated just in March of last year concerning their coverage of the pandemic that had just begun.
“Governments are using the pandemic as an advantage over freedom speech,” Can said.
Turkey is well-known for its jailing of journalists, but it was not the only country in the region to employ draconian tools to control the pandemic narrative. Nor have journalists been the only targets.
BIRN has confirmed dozens of cases in which regular citizens have faced charges of causing panic on social media or in person. There are indications the true number of cases runs into the hundreds.
Whether dealing with accurate but perhaps unflattering news reports or with what the World Health Organisation called last year an “infodemic” of false information, governments have not hesitated to turn to social media giants to get hold of the information that could help them track down those deemed to be breaking the rules.
“Every government has a duty to promote reliable information and correct harmful and untrue allegations in order to protect the personal integrity and trust of citizens,” said Tea Gorjanc Prelevic, head of the Montenegrin NGO Human Rights Action.
“But any measure taken to combat misinformation should not violate the fundamental right to expression.”
Internet sites shut down
Illustration: Unsplash.com
Battling an invisible enemy, governments across the region have sought to restrict information while cracking down on media reporting or social media posts that deviate from the official narrative. ‘Misinformation’ has been criminalised.
Some of these restrictions were part of the states of emergency that were declared; others were introduced with new legislation that outlasts any temporary emergency decrees.
But who draws the line between the right to free speech and the need to preserve public order?
In its November 2020 COVID and Free Speech report, the Council of Europe rights body cautioned that “crisis situations should not be used as a pretext for restricting the public’s access to information or clamping down on critics.”
But that’s precisely what has happened in some countries.
In Hungary, the Penal Code was amended to criminalise the dissemination of “false or distorted facts capable of hindering or obstructing the efficiency of the protection efforts” for the duration of a state of emergency, first between March and June and again since November.
Parliament subsequently passed a bill making it easier for governments to declare such emergencies in future. In March, the government introduced punishments of one to five years in prison for spreading “falsehoods” or “distorted truth” deemed to obstruct efforts to combat the pandemic.
Similar restrictions were imposed in Bosnia’s mainly Serb-populated Republika Srpska entity and in Romania.
The Centre for Independent Journalism, CJI, an NGO that promotes media freedom and good journalistic practices, has raised concern that provisions enacted as part of a state of emergency between mid-March and mid-May 2020 to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus in Romania could hamper the ability of journalists to inform the public.
“The most worrying aspect of all this is, from my perspective, the limitations to the access to information of public interest,” said CJI executive director Cristina Lupu.
“The lack of transparency of the authorities is a very bad sign and the biggest problem our media faces now,” Lupu told BIRN, lamenting the fact it left the public without “access to timely information.”
In March 2020, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, raised concern about what it said was the “removal of reports and entire websites, without providing appeal or redress mechanisms” in Romania.
The Venice Commission, the CoE’s advisory body on constitutional affairs, stressed that even in emergency situations, exceptions to freedom of expression must be narrowly construed and subject to parliamentary control to ensure that the free flow of information is not excessively impeded.
“It is doubtful whether restrictions on publishing “false” information about a disease that is still being studied can be in line with the [Venice Commission] requirement unless it concerns blatantly false or outright dangerous assertions,” it said.
Instead of prevention, fines and prison terms
Early on in the pandemic, the Republika Srpska government issued a decree allowing it to introduce punitive measures, including fines, for spreading ‘fake news’ about the virus in the media and on social networks during the state of emergency.
According to the decree, anyone using social or traditional media to spread ‘fake news’ and cause panic or public disorder faced possible fines of between 500 and 1,500 euros for private individuals and 1,500 and 4,500 euros for companies or organisations. It is not known how many people have been fined. The decree was dismissed in April.
In Montenegro, Article 398 of the Criminal Code, introduced in 2013, foresees a fine or a prison sentence of up to 12 months for the spreading of false news or allegations which cause panic or serious disturbances of public order or peace. For journalists, the punishment runs to three years in prison. The law was hardly used until protests erupted at the end of 2019 over a controversial religious freedom law.
In July 2019, long before the pandemic, North Macedonia’s government unveiled an action plan to deal with ‘fake news’, and doubled down in March 2020 with a vow to punish anyone deemed to be sharing disinformation about the novel coronavirus.
Skopje-based communications and new media specialist Bojan Kordalov said authorities would be better off focusing on prevention and raising awareness.
“It is necessary to build a system of active and digital transparency, as well as to create a real strategy for fast and efficient two-way communication of institutions with citizens and the media, which means highly-trained and prepared staff for 24-hour monitoring and publication of official and credible information to the public,” Kordalov told BIRN.
In Turkey, media censorship, particularly of online outlets, has increased since the onset of the pandemic, according to a report published in November by the Journalists’ Association of Turkey.
According to the report, between July and September 2020 alone, RTUK, the state agency for monitoring, regulating and sanctioning radio and television broadcasts, issued 90 penalties against independent media, including halts to broadcasting and administrative fines.
The government also passed several new draconian laws concerning digital rights and civil society organisations, forcing social media companies to appoint legal representatives to respond to government demands, including those requiring the closure of accounts or deleting of social media posts.
It is not known how many people were investigated or arrested under the new measures, but administrative fines during the pandemic totalled roughly one billion Turkish liras, or 115 million euros.
‘Fake news’ arrests
Illustration: Unsplash.com
In North Macedonia, fake news stories shared on social media ranged from a report that a garage was being used as a COVID-19 testing facility to health authorities being accused of negligence that led to the death of two sisters from COVID-19 complications. One fake story claimed food shortages were imminent.
According to the country’s Ministry of Interior, by September 2020 authorities had acted on a total of 58 cases stemming from the alleged dissemination of fake news related to COVID-19. Thirty-one cases were forwarded to prosecutors and criminal charges have been pressed in three, a ministry spokesman told BIRN.
In Serbia, the penalty for the crime of causing disorder and panic is imprisonment for between three months and three years, as well as a fine. According to Serbian Interior Ministry, in the first two months of the pandemic dozens of people were charged.
After she broke news about the disarray in the Clinical Centre of Vojvodina, Serbia’s northern province, Nova.rs reporter Ana Lalic was questioned by police and her home was searched.
In neighbouring Montenegro, a heated political row over a disputed law on religions saw some people arrested for spreading panic even before the country confirmed its first case of COVID-19.
BIRN was able to confirm 14 cases in which journalists, editors and members of the public were arrested for causing panic.
Similarly in Turkey, the interior ministry investigated, fined and detained hundreds of people in the first few months of the pandemic over their social media posts. Later, however, the ministry stopped publishing such data.
Critics say the government was determined to muzzle complaints about its handling of the pandemic and the economy.
“Turkey in general has a problem when it comes to freedom of speech,” said Ali Gul, a lawyer and rights activist. “The government increases its pressure because it does not want people to speak about its failures.” Ali Gul.
In Croatia, no journalist has been charged with spreading fake news during the pandemic, but that’s not to say there was not any misleading information.
“Without any hesitation, I can say that, unfortunately, a large number of citizens have been involved in spreading false news,” said Tomislav Levak, a teaching assistant and PhD candidate at the Academy of Art and Culture in the eastern Croatian city of Osijek. “But in my opinion, in most cases, it is actually unintentional because they do not think critically enough.”
The Interior Ministry said that it had registered 40 violations of Article 16 of the Law on Misdemeanors against Public Order and Peace, “which are related to the COVID-19 epidemic”.
Rise in state requests to social media giants
The transparency reports of Facebook and Twitter shed light on the scale of government efforts to find and track accounts suspected of spreading panic.
According to Twitter, in 2020 emergency disclosure requests – when law enforcement bodies seek account information – accounted for roughly one out of every five global information requests submitted to Twitter, increasing by 20 per cent during the reporting period while the aggregate number of accounts specified in these requests increased by 24 per cent.
Turkey accounts for three per cent of all government requests for information from Twitter.
In the first six months of last year, Turkey registered a 160 per cent increase in emergency requests compared to the same period in 2019.
North Macedonia saw a 175 per cent increase.
In terms of removal requests, they multiplied several times over from Serbia, Turkey and Poland.
As for Facebook, Turkey last year submitted 6,171 requests, a threefold increase from 2019. In 4,904 cases, Facebook disclosed data, compared to 1,513 cases in 2019. Poland made 4,572 requests, up from 3,397 in 2019, and received information back in 2,666 cases, compared to 1,902 the previous year.
When it comes to legal process requests – when states ask for account information to aid an investigation – Turkey and Poland lead the region with 6,143 and 4,200 requests respectively, roughly double the numbers in 2019.
Compared to the same period in 2019, Facebook data shows a significant rise in all sorts of requests from most countries in the region.
In terms of preservation requests – when law enforcement bodies ask Facebook to preserve account records that may serve as evidence in legal proceedings – Bosnia and Herzegovina registered an increase of just over 150 per cent.
Turkey accounts for 3.55 per cent of and Poland 2.63 per cent of all government requests for information from Facebook.
Lawsuits designed to silence
And if that wasn’t enough, some media faced lawsuits that watchdogs say were designed simply to stop the free flow of information – a so-called SLAPP, or Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, the purpose of which is to censor or intimidate critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defence.
In Poland, the publisher and journalists of the weekly Newsweek Polska were subjected to a SLAPP for their reporting on Polish clothing company LLP, owner of the Reserved brand, which the weekly said had been sending masks bought in Poland to its factories in China despite a severe shortage in Poland.
The company is seeking damages of €1.37 million, an apology, the removal of articles about LPP published on March 22 and a “ban on disseminating claims that suggest that the company’s position on this matter is untrue.”
The case is ongoing.
Also in Poland, a court dismissed lawsuits brought against media outlet Wyborcza by Polish KGHM, one of the world’s biggest producers of copper and silver, over stories revealing that the company had paid huge sums of money for worthless masks from China.
In Turkey, a court granted a take-down request by pasta producer Oba Makarna over a report that 26 of its factory workers in the south-central city of Gaziantep had tested positive for COVID-19. According to the court ruling, while the report was true, it damaged the company’s commercial reputation.
In its report, the CoE warned that restrictions introduced during the pandemic could give rise to increased use of civil lawsuits, particularly defamation cases.
“While their use did not increase dramatically during the height of the pandemic, there is some concern that pandemic-related reporting will be subjected to SLAPP lawsuits and defamation cases in the future, it said.
The day starts with coffee and unread messages: a few from friends, a few work related, a paid furniture ad, and one with lots of exclamation marks that indicates that it must be read immediately before it is deleted from the Internet. This is because it reveals a big secret, hidden from ordinary people.
That “secret” may refer to the “fake” pandemic, the “dangerous” new vaccine, the “global conspiracy against Donald Trump”, the “dark truth about child-eating elites” – an especially a popular term – and so on.
The sender or sharer may well be an ordinary person that we know personally or through social networks, and who sends such content for the first time or occasionally.
Spreading misinformation through personal messages has become increasingly common in North Macedonia, as elsewhere.
But this is not the only novelty. As the fight against fake news has intensified, with changes of algorithms on social networks and the inclusion of independent fact-checkers, so have the techniques that allow false content to remain undetected on social networks for as long as possible.
“Sending personal messages is an attempt to spread misinformation faster, before it can be detected,” explains Rosana Aleksoska, from, Fighting Fake News Narratives, F2N2, a project led by the well-known Skopje based NGO MOST, which searches for misinformation on the Internet.
Among the newer methods used to avoid detection, she notes, is the mass sharing of print screens instead of whole texts, and, in countries that use Cyrillic script like North Macedonia, Cyrillic and Latin letters are deliberately mixed.
Spreaders of misinformation are always in search of new ways to avoid detection. Illustration photo: BIRN
See and share before it’s removed
One video that recently went viral on social networks in North Macedonia, fuelling panic about COVID vaccines, was released on December 8.
In it, a former journalist appears to interpret a document outlining possible contra-indications in and side-effects from the newly developed Pfizer vaccine against COVID-19 – but presents them as established facts.
It got more than 270,000 views and 5,300 shares on Facebook.
While the video reached a large audience, those numbers only partly show just how far the misinformation spread.
The video soon found itself in the inboxes of many other people, after Facebook acquaintances sent it to them in a direct message, urging them to see it as soon as possible, before it was deleted or marked as fake.
People who believe in conspiracy theories, or regularly participate in disseminating them, send direct messages to each other, informing them that new material has been released.
At a first glance, one might think it sounds like a small obscure group, hanging out online.
But the results of a recent public opinion poll conducted by the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group, BiEPAG, showed that only 7 per cent of the population in the region do not believe any of the best-known conspiracy theories, and over 50 per cent believe in all of them. The combined percentage of all those who said they believed in all or just in some of the theories was over 80 per cent.
With these huge numbers, it is not surprising that more misinformation also ends up in the virtual mailboxes of those who “don’t believe”, persuading them to switch sides. Some of these people receive three or four such messages a week.
What the messages have in common is that they are accompanied by urgent words: “See this before they delete it from Facebook”, or, “Share and disseminate”, or “They could no longer remain silent, take a look”, etc.
Because people pay more attention to personal messages than to other social media posts, they are more likely to see this content. They may well also spread them, explains Bojan Kordalov, a Skopje-based expert on social networks and new media.
“The way they are set up and designed, fake news gives people a strong incentive to spread them,” he said.
The pandemic was the main topic of misinformation this year, but in North Macedonia this topic intertwines with others, ranging from Euro-Atlantic integration to politics, Aleksoska from F2N2 observes.
“The object of the attack is people’s emotions – to provoke an intense reaction,” she says.
As the year went on, the subject of messages also changed. At first they focused on the “false” nature of the virus, and then later on how there was no need to wear masks or observe social distancing and other health-protection measures.
After the breakthrough in discovering a vaccine was made, the messages began to focus on the alleged dangers and health risks of vaccination.
The way they are set up and designed, fake news gives people a strong incentive to spread them. Illustration photo: BIRN
“Don’t believe, check” – as we instruct you
The video about the supposed effects of the vaccine that gained traction in North Macedonia is a typical example of what typical disinformation looks like. Similar videos are produced every day.
Among the private messages received by social networks users are videos of people posing as doctors from the US, Canada, Belgium, Britain or Germany, filming themselves with webcams, warning that vaccines may well be deadly.
In one video, which focuses on reading the instructions on the Astra Zeneca vaccine, it is also clear that the creators of fake news use the same messages as those who fight fake news, such as: “Don’t believe, check”.
However, they also provide the guidelines about what to “check”.
“Don’t trust us, investigate for yourself. For example, visit these sites. Or google this term, ChAdOx-1. See here, it says – micro cloning,” the narrator in this video can be heard saying as the inscriptions from the vaccine packaging are displayed.
“They convince us that it is safe, but the traces are here in front of us,” the narrator adds, in a dramatic tone.
The pandemic was the main topic of misinformation this year. Illustration photo: BIRN
Finding new ways to bypass filters
Although outsiders have no direct insight into exactly how social networking algorithms detect suspicious content, as they are business secrets, many experts on these technologies told BIRN that certain assumptions can be drawn.
As the creators of disinformation can also be technologically savvy, they have likely drawn their own conclusions and seek new ways to bypass known filters.
One common alarm is when content goes viral quickly. This signals to social networks that the content needs to be checked. But if several different messages containing the same main point are sent, instead of one identical message, the protection algorithms may have a harder time detecting the content’s risk.
Apart from masking the content, spreaders of misinformation use different formats to avoid detection.
Print screens of articles and of social media posts may be shared instead of the actual articles or posts. Some users even do this with their own posts, and republish them as photos.
“Print screens are common in conducting disinformation campaigns. This is just one of the mechanisms they use,” Aleksoska explains. “The problem is much bigger, so the answer must be comprehensive and coordinated.”
Print screens are not only more difficult for the software to detect, but make it harder for people to check, especially if the name of the media outlet that published the content is omitted or cut from the photo.
The part of the internet in North Macedonia recently saw a print screen from a Swiss media outlet circulating with the title in German reading: “Currently no vaccine can be approved.” Hundreds of people shared it.
The publisher that first spread this print screen claimed that the Swiss had rejected the German vaccine “because of the risk of death”.
But the real text does not say at all that Switzerland rejected the German vaccine but only that it will first implement a risk control strategy “to prevent side effects or fatalities”.
This way, those who spread fake news have a clear advantage over those who fight to stop it.
In order to reach the original article, one has to first rewrite the title in German in a search engine, find the text with an identical title among the results and translate it with an online tool. While doing this, ten people will have since received this print screen and will just click “Share”.
Print screens in North Macedonia have also recently been used to spread untrue information about the current dispute between North Macedonia and its neighbour, Bulgaria, which has refused to allow Skopje to start EU accession talks.
Some of these posts present Bulgaria’s demands as something that North Macedonia already accepted.
Another technique used to avoid or baffle filters is mixing Cyrillic and Latin letters that are identical in meaning or form, like the letters a, e, n, x, u, j, s, as well as some others.
When a social media user complains that a post has been removed from their profile, in some cases, another user will advise them next time to mix up the letters, making it harder to detect problematic content.
Some people spread fake news because they believe in it and think they are contributing. Photo: Pixabay
Ideological foot-soldiers do the hard work
But why would anyone advise others on how to make it harder to for social networks to detect their problematic content.
Checking some of the profiles that publish and spread misinformation reveals that, besides the usual suspicious suspects – like thematic profiles with false names that only publish information from one or more sources, or people who are part of formal or informal organizations and spread their ideology – a large number of users have no known connection to disinformation networks.
Most are ordinary people who do not hide their identities, publish photos of family trips, but also from time to time share some “undiscovered truth” about the coronavirus or a “child abuse plot” – wedged between lunch recipes and pictures of walks in parks.
Fact-checkers and communication technology experts agree that disseminating misinformation is a highly organised activity, often done with a malicious intent – but also that many people share such content without hidden motives. They clearly feel a responsibility to be “on the right side”.
“Some people spread fake news because they believe in it and think that by doing so they are contributing to some kind of fight for the truth to come to light,” Kordalov explains.
This makes the fight against misinformation even more difficult, because while organised networks create and spread false news at the top, most of the work of dissemination is done by individuals and micro-communities that have no connection to them, or even between each other.
“All conspiracy theories are just pieces of the master theory that says that certain elites rule the world. The more somebody believes in that, the more likely he or she would read and share content supporting this theory,” Aleksoska notes.
However, there are some solutions. Algorithms, according to Kordalov, can be reprogrammed to recognise new forms of false news. No final answer can be found to misinformation, he admits, but the two sides constantly compete and the side that invests most effort and resources will lead in the end.
Technological competition, however, is not enough if it is not matched by stronger institutional action, because creating mistrust in institutions is one of the main goals of disinformation campaigns.
Kordalov says it is not enough for the PR services of institutions just to issue announcements rebutting fake news related to their work each time they spot it. They must be actively involved in a two-way communication and react to false news quickly.
“This is often called ‘damage control’ but this is not the point. Their [institutions’] job is to serve the citizens, and providing real information is part of that service,” he says.
One way for institutions to protect public trust in them is to provide high quality services, he adds. If they work well, and if citizens feel satisfied with them, it will be harder for disinformation to hurt them.
The report presents an overview of the main violations of digital rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania and Serbia between January 31 and September 30, 2020, and makes a series of recommendations for authorities in order to curb such infringements during future social crises.
The global public health crisis triggered by the coronavirus exposed a new the failure of states around the world to provide a framework that would better balance the interests of safety and privacy. Instead, the report documents incidents of censorship, fake news, security breaches and concentration of information.
More than 200 pandemic-related violations tracked
At the onset of the pandemic, numerous violations of digital rights were observed – from violations of the privacy of persons in isolation to manipulation, dissemination of false information and Internet fraud.
BIRN and Share Foundation documented 221 violations in the context of COVID-19 during the eight-month monitoring period, the largest number coming during the initial peak of the pandemic in March and April – 67 and 79 respectively – before slowly declining.
The countries with the highest number of violations to date are Serbia, with 46, and Croatia, with 44.
The most common violation – accounting for roughly half of all cases – was manipulation in the digital environment caused by news sites that published unverified and inaccurate information, and by the circulating of incomplete and false data on social media.
This can be explained in large measure by the low level of media literacy in the countries of the region, where few people actually check the news and information provided to them, while the media themselves often publish unverified information.
The most common targets of digital rights violations were citizens and journalists. However, both of these groups were frequently also among the perpetrators.
Contact tracing apps: Useful or not?
The debate about the use of contact-tracing apps as a method of combating the spread of COVID-19 was one of the most important discussions in Croatia and North Macedonia.
At the very beginning of the pandemic, the Croatian government led by the conservative Croatian Democratic Union, HDZ, proposed a change to the Electronic Communications Act under which, in extraordinary situations, the health minister would request from telecommunications companies the location data of users.
Similarly, Macedonian health authorities announced they were looking to use “all tools and means” to combat the virus, with North Macedonia among the first countries in the Western Balkans to launch a contact-tracing app on April 13.
Developed and donated to the Macedonian authorities by Skopje-based software company Nextsense, the StopKorona! app is based on Bluetooth distance measuring technology and stores data locally on users’ devices, while exchanging encrypted, anonymised data relevant to the infection spread for a limited period of 14 days. According to data privacy experts, the decentralised design guaranteed that data would be stored only on devices that run the app, unless they voluntarily submit that data to health authorities.
Croatia launched its own at the end of July, but by late August media reports said the Stop COVID-19 app had been downloaded by less than two per cent of mobile phone users in the country. The threshold for it to be effective is 60 per cent, the reports said.
Key worrying trends mapped
Illustration: Olivia Solis
Bosnia and Herzegovina saw a number of problems with personal data protection, free access to information and disinformation. In terms of disinformation, people were exposed to a variety of false and sometimes outlandish claims, including conspiracy theories about the origin of the coronavirus, its spread by plane and various miracle cures.
Conspiracy theories, like those blaming the spread of the virus on 5G mobile networks, flourished online in Croatia too. One person in Croatia destroyed their Wifi equipment, believing it was 5G.
In Hungary, fake news about COVID-19 arrived even before the virus itself, said journalist Akos Keller Alant, who monitored the digital environment in Hungary.
Several clickbait fake news sites published articles about COVID-19 victims a month before Hungary’s first confirmed case. The Anti-Cybercrime Unit of the Hungarian police arrested several people for spreading fake news, starting in early February when police raided the operators of a network of fake news sites.
In Kosovo, online media emerged as the biggest violators of digital rights by publishing unverified and false information as well as personal health information. Personal data rights were also violated by state institutions and public figures.
In Montenegro, the most worrying digital rights violations concerned privacy and personal data protection of those infected with the coronavirus or those forced to self-isolate.
The early days of the pandemic, when Montenegro was among the few countries that could claim to have kept a lid on the virus, was a rare moment of social and political consensus in the country about how to respond, said Tamara Milas of the Centre for Civic Education in Montenegro, an NGO.
The situation changed, however, when the government was accused of the gross violation of the right to privacy and the right to the protection of personal data.
Like its Western Balkan peers, North Macedonia was flooded with unverified information and claims shared online with regards the pandemic. Some of the most concerning cases included false claims about infected persons, causing a stir on social media.
In Romania, the government used state-of-emergency powers to shut down websites – including news and opinion sites – accused of spreading what authorities deemed fake news about the pandemic, according to BIRN correspondent Marcel Gascon, who monitors digital rights violations in Romania.
In Serbia, a prominent case concerned a breach of security in the country’s central COVID-19 database. For eight days, the login credentials for the database, Information System COVID-19, were publicly available on the website of a public health body.
In another incident, the initials, age, place-of-work and personal address of a person infected with the virus were posted on the official webpage of the municipality of Sid in western Serbia as well as on the town’s social media accounts.
In the report, BIRN and Share Foundation conclude that technology, especially in a time of crisis, should not be seen as the solution to complex issues, be that protection of health or upholding public order and safety. Rather, technology should be used to the benefit of citizens and in the interest of their rights and freedoms.
When intrusive technologies and regulations are put in place, it is hard to take a step back, particularly in societies with weak democratic institutions, the report states. Under such circumstances, the measures applied in one crisis for the protection of public health may one day be repurposed and used against other “social plagues”, ultimately leading to reduced human rights standards.
To read the full report click here. For individual cases, check our regional database, developed together with the SHARE Foundation.
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Barricades in the village of Rudar, on the road to Serb-majority Kosovo municipality of Leposavic, close to the border with Serbia, August 1, 2022. Photo: Shkodrane Dakaj/BIRN
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