Category: Uncategorized

Greek Media Freedom Hit by Surveillance, Lawsuits and Threats: Report

Posted on by BIRD

The initial findings of a report published on Wednesday by eight international media freedom organisations said that press freedom in Greece is under “sustained threat” from the impact of the ‘Predatorgate’ spyware surveillance scandal, abusive lawsuits and physical threats against journalists, as well as economic and political pressures on media.

“While Greece has a small but highly professional group of independent and investigative media doing quality public interest reporting, these outlets remain isolated on the fringes of the media landscape and lack systemic support,” said the International Press Institute’s advocacy officer, Jamie Wiseman, at the launch of the report at the Journalists’ Union of Athens Daily Newspapers.

The report noted how journalists and politicians, among them the leader of the opposition party PASOK were placed under surveillance by the Greek secret services using an illegal spyware called Predator.

It also noted how the 2021 murder of the veteran crime journalist Giorgos Karaivaz remains unresolved.

It said that abusive lawsuits – so-called SLAPPs, Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation – and physical attacks against journalists, have been weaponised to silence critical voices by exhausting them financially and psychologically.

“Especially for smaller outlets and freelance journalists, SLAPPs pose an existential threat as often the compensation demanded greatly exceeds their resources, which further exacerbates their intended chilling effect beyond the targeted journalist,” said the report.

The report was produced after a visit to Greece by a delegation composed of the six members of the Media Freedom Rapid Response: ARTICLE 19 Europe, the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, the European Federation of Journalists, Free Press Unlimited, the International Press Institute and the Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa. They were joined by representatives of the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders.

The eight organisations called on the Greek government and prime minister “to show political courage and urgently take specific measures aimed at improving the climate for independent journalism and salvaging press freedom”.

A more detailed report with expanded recommendations will be published in the coming weeks, they said.

‘Who Benefits?’ Inside the EU’s Fight over Scanning for Child Sex Content

Posted on by BIRD

In early May 2022, days before she launched one of the most contentious legislative proposals Brussels had seen in years, the European Union’s home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson, sent a letter to a US organisation co-founded in 2012 by the movie stars Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore.

The organisation, Thorn, develops artificial intelligence tools to scan for child sexual abuse images online, and Johansson’s proposed regulation is designed to fight the spread of such content on messaging apps.

“We have shared many moments on the journey to this proposal,” the Swedish politician wrote, according to a copy of the letter addressed to Thorn executive director Julie Cordua and which BIRN has seen.

Johansson urged Cordua to continue the campaign to get it passed: “Now I am looking to you to help make sure that this launch is a successful one.”

That campaign faces a major test in October when Johansson’s proposal is put to a vote in the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament. It has already been the subject of heated debate.

The regulation would obligate digital platforms – from Facebook to Telegram, Signal to Snapchat, TikTok to clouds and online gaming websites – to detect and report any trace of child sexual abuse material, CSAM, on their systems and in their users’ private chats.

It would introduce a complex legal architecture reliant on AI tools for detecting images, videos and speech – so-called ‘client-side scanning’ – containing sexual abuse against minors and attempts to groom children.

Welcomed by some child welfare organisations, the regulation has nevertheless been met with alarm from privacy advocates and tech specialists who say it will unleash a massive new surveillance system and threaten the use of end-to-end encryption, currently the ultimate way to secure digital communications from prying eyes.

The EU’s top data protection watchdog, Wojciech Wiewiorowski, warned Johansson about the risks in 2020, when she informed him of her plans.

They amount to “crossing the Rubicon” in terms of the mass surveillance of EU citizens, he said in an interview for this story. It “would fundamentally change the internet and digital communication as we know it.”

Johansson, however, has not blinked. “The privacy advocates sound very loud,” the commissioner said in a speech in November 2021. “But someone must also speak for the children.”

Based on dozens of interviews, leaked documents and insight into the Commission’s internal deliberations, this investigation connects the dots between the key actors bankrolling and organising the advocacy campaign in favour of Johansson’s proposal and their direct links with the commissioner and her cabinet.

It’s a synthesis that granted certain stakeholders, AI firms and advocacy groups – which enjoy significant financial backing – a questionable level of influence over the crafting of EU policy.

The proposed regulation is excessively “influenced by companies pretending to be NGOs but acting more like tech companies”, said Arda Gerkens, former director of Europe’s oldest hotline for reporting online CSAM.

“Groups like Thorn use everything they can to put this legislation forward, not just because they feel that this is the way forward to combat child sexual abuse, but also because they have a commercial interest in doing so.”

If the regulation undermines encryption, it risks introducing new vulnerabilities, critics argue. “Who will benefit from the legislation?” Gerkens asked. “Not the children.”

Privacy assurances ‘deeply misleading’


The Action Day promoted by Brave Movement in front of the EP. Photo: Justice Initiative

Star of That ‘70s Show and a host of Hollywood hits, 45-year-old Kutcher resigned as chairman of the Thorn board in mid-September amid uproar over a letter he wrote to a judge in support of convicted rapist and fellow That ‘70s Show actor Danny Masterson, prior to his sentencing.

Up until that moment, however, Kutcher had for years been the very recognisable face of a campaign to rid the Internet of CSAM, a role that involved considerable access to the top brass in Brussels.

Thorn’s declarations to the EU transparency register lists meetings with senior members of the cabinets of top Commission officials with a say in the bloc’s security or digital policy, including Johansson, antitrust czar Margrethe Vestager, Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas, and internal market commissioner Thierry Breton.

In November 2020, it was the turn of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who was part of a video conference with Kutcher and an organisation registered in the small Dutch town of Lisse – the WeProtect Global Alliance.

Though registered in the EU lobby database as a charity, Thorn sells its AI tools on the market for a profit; since 2018, the US Department of Homeland Security, for example, has purchased software licences from Thorn for a total of $4.3 million.

These tools are used by companies such as Vimeo, Flickr and OpenAI – the creator of chatbot ChatGPT and one of many beneficiaries of Kutcher’s IT investments – and by law enforcement agencies across the globe.

In November 2022, Kutcher and Johansson lined up as key speakers at a summit organised and moderated by then European Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili, who three weeks later was arrested and deposed over an investigation into the ‘Qatargate’ cash-for-lobbying scandal.

In March this year, six months before his resignation amid uproar over his letter of support for Masterson, Kutcher addressed lawmakers in Brussels, seeking to appease concerns about the possible misuse and shortcomings of the existing technology. Technology can scan for suspicious material without violating privacy, he said, a claim that the European Digital Rights association said was “deeply misleading”.

The Commission has been reluctant to detail the relationship between Thorn and Johansson’s cabinet under the EU’s freedom of information mechanism. It refused to disclose Cordua’s emailed response to Johansson’s May 2022 letter or a ‘policy one pager’ Thorn had shared with her cabinet, citing Thorn’s position that “the disclosure of the information contained therein would undermine the organisation’s commercial interest”.

After seven months of communication concerning access to documents and the intervention of the European Ombudsman, in early September the Commission finally released a series of email exchanges between Johansson’s Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs and Thorn.

The emails reveal a continuous and close working relationship between the two sides in the months following the roll out of the CSAM proposal, with the Commission repeatedly facilitating Thorn’s access to crucial decision-making venues attended by ministers and representatives of EU member states.

The European Ombudsman is looking into the Commission’s refusal to grant access to a host of other internal documents pertaining to Johansson’s proposal.

FGS Global, a major lobbying firm hired by Thorn and paid at least 600,000 euros in 2022 alone, said Thorn would not comment for this story. Johansson also did not respond to an interview request.

Enter ‘WeProtect Global Alliance’


Photo: Courtesy of Solomon.

Among the few traces of Thorn’s activities in the EU’s lobby transparency register is a contribution of 219,000 euros in 2021 to the WeProtect Global Alliance, the organisation that had a video conference with Kutcher and Von der Leyen in late 2020.

WeProtect is the offspring of two governmental initiatives – one co-founded by the Commission and the United States, the other by Britain.

They merged in 2016 and, in April 2020, as momentum built for legislation to CSAM with client-side scanning technology, WeProtect was transformed from a British government-funded entity into a putatively independent ‘foundation’ registered at a residential address in Lisse, on the Dutch North Sea coast.

Its membership includes powerful security agencies, a host of governments, Big Tech managers, NGOs, and one of Johansson’s most senior cabinet officials, Antonio Labrador Jimenez, who heads the Commission’s team tasked with fighting CSAM.

Minutes after the proposed regulation was unveiled in May last year, Labrador Jimenez emailed his Commission colleagues: “The EU does not accept that children cannot be protected and become casualties of policies that put any other values or rights above their protection, whatever these may be.”

He said he was looking forward to “seeing many of you in Brussels during the WeProtect Global Alliance summit” the following month.

Labrador Jimenez officially joined the WeProtect Policy Board in July 2020, after the Commission decided to join and fund it as “the central organisation for coordinating and streamlining global efforts and regulatory improvements” in the fight against CSAM. WeProtect public documents, however, show Labrador Jimenez participating in WeProtect board meetings in December 2019.

Commenting on this story, the Commission said Labrador Jimenez “does not receive any kind of compensation for his participation in the WeProtect Global Alliance Management Board, and performs this function as part of his duties at the Commission”.

Labrador Jimenez’s position on the WeProtect Board, however, raises questions about how the Commission uses its participation in the organisation to promote Johannson’s proposal.

When Labrador Jimenez briefed fellow WeProtect Board members about the proposed regulation in July 2022, notes from the meeting show that “the Board discussed the media strategy of the legislation”.

Labrador Jimenez has also played a central role in drafting and promoting Johansson’s regulation, the same proposal that WeProtect is actively campaigning for with EU funding. And next to him on the board sits Thorn’s Julie Cordua, as well as government officials from the US and Britain [the latter currently pursuing its own Online Safety Bill], Interpol, and United Arab Emirates colonel, Dana Humaid Al Marzouqi, who chairs or participates in numerous international police task forces.

Between 2020 and 2023, Johansson’s Directorate-General awarded almost 1 million euros to WeProtect to organise the June 2022 summit in Brussels, which was dedicated to the fight against CSAM and activities to enhance law enforcement collaboration.

WeProtect did not reply directly to questions concerning its funding arrangements with the Commission or to what extent its advocacy strategies are shaped by the governments and stakeholders sitting on its policy board.

In a statement, it said it is led “by a multi-stakeholder Global Policy Board; members include representatives from countries, international and civil society organisations, and the technology industry.”

The financing


Photo: Courtesy of Solomon.

Another member of the WeProtect board alongside Labrador Jimenez is Douglas Griffiths, a former official of the US State Department and currently president of the Geneva-based Oak Foundation, a group of philanthropic organisations around the world providing grants “to make the world a safer, fairer, and more sustainable place to live”.

Oak Foundation has provided WeProtect with “generous support for strategic communications”, according to WeProtect financial statements from 2021.

From Oak Foundation’s annual financial reports, it is clear it has a long-term commitment to aiding NGOs tackling child abuse. It is also funding the closely linked network of civil society organisations and lobby groups promoting Johansson’s proposed regulation, many of which have helped build an umbrella entity called the European Child Sexual Abuse Legislation Advocacy Group, ECLAG.

ECLAG, which launched its website a few weeks after Johansson’s proposal was announced in May 2022, acts as a coordination platform for some of the most active organisations lobbying in favour of the CSAM legislation. Its steering committee includes Thorn and a host of well-known children’s rights organisations such as ECPAT, Eurochild, Missing Children Europe, Internet Watch Foundation, and Terre des Hommes.

Another member is Brave Movement, which came into being in April 2022, a month before’s Johansson’s regulation was rolled out, thanks to a $10.3 million contribution by the Oak Foundation to Together for Girls, a US-based non-profit that fights sexual violence against children.

Oak Foundation has also given to Thorn – $5 million in 2019. In 2020, it gave $250,000 to ECPAT to engage “policy makers to include children’s interests in revisions to the Digital Services Act and on the impact of end-to-end encryption” and a further $100,000 in support of efforts to end “the online child sexual abuse and exploitation of children in the digital space”. The same year it authorised a $990,000 grant to Eurochild, another NGO coalition that campaigns for children’s rights in Brussels.

In 2021, Oak Foundation gave Thorn a further $250,000 to enhance its coordinating role in Brussels with the aim of ensuring “that any legislative solutions and instruments coming from the EU build on and enhance the existing ecosystem of global actors working to protect children online”.

In 2022, the foundation granted ECPAT a three-year funding package of $2.79 million “to ensure that children’s rights are placed at the centre of digital policy processes in the European Union”. The WeProtect Global Alliance received $2.33 million, also for three years, “to bring together governments, the private sector, civil society, and international organisations to develop policies and solutions that protect children from sexual exploitation and abuse online”.

In a response for this story, Oak Foundation said it does not “advocate for proposed legislation nor work on the details of those policy recommendations”.

It did not respond directly to questions concerning the implications of Johansson’s regulation on privacy rights. A spokesperson said the foundation supports organisations that “advocate for new policies, with a specific focus in the EU, US, and UK, where opportunities exist to establish precedent for other governments”.

‘Divide and conquer’

Brave Movement’s internal advocacy documents lay out a comprehensive strategy for utilising the voices of abuse survivors to leverage support for Johansson’s proposal in European capitals and, most importantly, within the European Parliament, while targeting prominent critics.

The organisation has enjoyed considerable access to Johansson. In late April 2022, it hosted the Commissioner in an online ‘Global Survivors Action Summit’ – a rare feat in the Brussels bubble for an organisation that was launched just weeks earlier.

An internal strategy document from November 2022 the same year leaves no doubts about the organisation’s role in rallying support for Johansson’s proposal.

“The main objective of the Brave Movement mobilisation around this proposed legislation is to see it passed and implemented throughout the EU,” it states.

“If this legislation is adopted, it will create a positive precedent for other countries… which we will invite to follow through with similar legislation.”

In April this year, the Brave Movement held an ‘Action Day’ outside the European Parliament, where a group of survivors of online child sexual abuse were gathered “to demand EU leaders be brave and act to protect millions of children at risk from the violence and trauma they faced”.

Johansson joined the photo-op.

Survivors of such abuse are key to the Brave Movement’s strategy of winning over influential MEPs.

“Once the EU Survivors taskforce is established and we are clear on the mobilised survivors, we will establish a list pairing responsible survivors with MEPs – we will ‘divide and conquer’ the MEPs by deploying in priority survivors from MEPs’ countries of origin,” its advocacy strategy reads.

Conservative Spanish MEP Javier Zarzalejos, the lead negotiator on the issue in the parliament, according to the Brave Movement strategy has called for “strong survivors’ mobilisation in key countries like Germany”.

Brave Movement’s links with the Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs goes deeper still: its Europe campaign manager, Jessica Airey, worked on communications for the Directorate-General between October 2022 and February 2023, promoting Johansson’s regulation.

According to her LinkedIn profile, Airey worked “closely with the policy team who developed the [child sexual abuse imagery] legislation in D.4 [where Labrador Jimenez works] and partners like Thorn”.

She also “worked horizontally with MEPs, WeProtect Global Alliance, EPCAT”.

Asked about a possible conflict of interest in Airey’s work for Brave Movement on the same legislative file, the European Commission responded that Airey was appointed as a trainee and so no formal permission was required. It did say, however, that “trainees must maintain strict confidentiality regarding all knowledge acquired during training. Unauthorised disclosure of non-public documents or information is strictly prohibited, with this obligation extending beyond the training period.”

Brave Movement said it is “proud of the diverse alliances we have built and the expert team we have recruited, openly, to achieve our strategic goals”, pointing out that last year alone one online safety hotline received 32 million reports of child sexual abuse content.

Brave Movement has enlisted expert support: its advocacy strategy was drafted by UK consultancy firm Future Advocacy, while its ‘toolkit’, which aims to “build a beating drum of support for comprehensive legislation that protects children” in the EU, was drafted with the involvement of Purpose, a consultancy whose European branch is controlled by French Capgemini SE.

Purpose specialises in designing campaigns for UN agencies and global companies, using “public mobilisation and storytelling” to “shift policies and change public narratives”.

Beginning in 2022, the Oak Foundation gave Purpose grants worth $1.9 million to “help make the internet safer for children”.

Since April 2022, Purpose representatives have met regularly with ECLAG – the network of civil society groups and lobbyists – to refine a pan-European communications strategy.

Documents seen by this investigation also show they met with members of Johansson’s team.

A ‘BeBrave Europe Task Force’ meeting in January this year involved the ECLAG steering group, Purpose EU, Justice Initiative and Labrador Jimenez’s unit within the Directorate-General. In 2023 the foundation that launched the Justice Initiative, the Guido Fluri Foundation, received $416,667 from Oak Foundation.

The Commission, according to its own notes of the meeting, “recommended that when speaking with stakeholders of the negotiation, the organisations should not forget to convey a sense of urgency on the need to find an agreement on the legislation this year”.

This coordinated messaging resulted this year in a social media video featuring Johansson, Zarzalejos, and representatives of the organisations behind ECLAG promoting a petition in favour of her regulation.

Disproportionate infringement of rights

Some 200 kilometres north from Brussels, in the Dutch city of Amsterdam, a bright office on the edge of the city’s famous red light district marks the frontline of the fight to identify and remove CSAM in Europe.

‘Offlimits’, previously known as the Online Child Abuse Expertise Agency, or EOKM, is Europe’s oldest hotline for children and adults wanting to report abuse, whether happening behind closed doors or seen on video circulating online.

In 2022, its seven analysts processed 144,000 reports, and 60 per cent concerned illegal content. The hotline sends requests to remove the content to web hosting providers and, if the material is considered particularly serious, to the police and Interpol.

Offlimits director between 2015 and September this year, Arda Gerkens is deeply knowledgeable of EU policy on the matter. Yet unlike the likes of Thorn, she had little luck accessing Johansson.

“I invited her here but she never came,” said Gerkens, a former Socialist Party MP in the Dutch parliament.

“Commissioner Johansson and her staff visited Silicon Valley and big North American companies,” she said. Companies presenting themselves as NGOs but acting more like tech companies have influenced Johansson’s regulation, Gerkens said, arguing that Thorn and groups like it “have a commercial interest”.

Gerkens said that the fight against child abuse must be deeply improved and involve an all-encompassing approach that addresses welfare, education, and the need to protect the privacy of children, along with a “multi-stakeholder approach with the internet sector”.

“Encryption,” she said, “is key to protecting kids as well: predators hack accounts searching for images”.

It’s a position reflected in some of the concerns raised by the Dutch in ongoing negotiations on a compromise text at the EU Council, arguing in favour of a less intrusive approach that protects encrypted communication and addresses only material already identified and designated as CSAM by monitoring groups and authorities.

A Dutch government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “The Netherlands has serious concerns with regard to the current proposals to detect unknown CSAM and address grooming, as current technologies lead to a high number of false positives.”

“The resulting infringement of fundamental rights is not proportionate.”

Self-interest

In June 2022, shortly after the roll out of Johansson’s proposal, Thorn representatives sat down with one of the commissioner’s cabinet staff, Monika Maglione. An internal report of the meeting, obtained for this investigation, notes that Thorn was interested to understand how “bottlenecks in the process that goes from risk assessment to detection order” would be dealt with.

Detection orders are a crucial component of the procedure set out within Johansson’s proposed regulation, determining the number of people to be surveilled and how often.

European Parliament sources say that in technical meetings, Zarzalejos, the rapporteur on the proposal, has argued in favour of detection orders that do not necessarily focus on individuals or groups of suspects, but are calibrated to allow scanning for suspicious content.

This, experts say, would unlock the door to the general monitoring of EU citizens, otherwise known as mass surveillance.

Asked to clarify his position, Zarzalejos’ office responded: “The file is currently being discussed closed-doors among the shadow rapporteurs and we are not making any comments so far”.

In the same meeting with Maglione, Thorn representatives expressed a “willingness to collaborate closely with COM [European Commission] and provide expertise whenever useful, in particular with respect to the creation of the database of indicators to be hosted by the EU Centre” as well as to prepare “communication material on online child sexual abuse”.

The EU Centre to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse, which would be created under Johansson’s proposal, would play a key role in helping member states and companies implement the legislation; it would also vet and approve scanning technologies, as well as purchase and offer them to small and medium companies.

As a producer of such scanning technologies, a role for Thorn in supporting the capacity building of the EU Centre database would be of significant commercial interest to the company.

Meredith Whittaker, president of Signal Foundation, the US non-for-profit foundation behind the Signal encrypted chat application, says that AI companies that produce scanning systems are effectively promoting themselves as clearing houses and a liability buffer for big tech companies, sensing the market potential.

“The more they frame this as a huge problem in the public discourse and to regulators, the more they incentivise large tech companies to outsource their dealing of the problems to them,” Whittaker said in an interview for this story.

Effectively, such AI firms are offering tech companies a “get out of responsibility free card”, Whittaker said, by telling them, “’You pay us (…) and we will host the hashes, we will maintain the AI system, we will do whatever it is to magically clean up this problem”.

“So it’s very clear that whatever their incorporation status is, that they are self-interested in promoting child exploitation as a problem that happens “online,” and then proposing quick (and profitable) technical solutions as a remedy to what is in reality a deep social and cultural problem. (…) I don’t think governments understand just how expensive and fallible these systems are, that we’re not looking at a one-time cost. We’re looking at hundreds of millions of dollars indefinitely due to the scale that this is being proposed at.”

Lack of scientific input


Photo by Alexas_Fotos/Pixabay

Johansson has dismissed the idea that the approach she advocates will unleash something new or extreme, telling MEPs last year that it was “totally false to say that with a new regulation there will be new possibilities for detection that don’t exist today”.

But experts question the science behind it.

Matthew Daniel Green, a cryptographer and security technologist at John Hopkins University, said there was an evident lack of scientific input into the crafting of her regulation.

“In the first impact assessment of the EU Commission there was almost no outside scientific input and that’s really amazing since Europe has a terrific scientific infrastructure, with the top researchers in cryptography and computer security all over the world,” Green said.

AI-driven scanning technology, he warned, risks exposing digital platforms to malicious attacks and would undermine encryption.

“If you touch upon built-in encryption models, then you introduce vulnerabilities,” he said. “The idea that we are going to be able to have encrypted conversations like ours is totally incompatible with these scanning automated systems, and that’s by design.”

In a blow to the advocates of AI-driven CSAM scanning, US tech giant Apple said in late August that it is impossible to implement CSAM-scanning while preserving the privacy and security of digital communications. The same month, UK officials privately admitted to tech companies that there is no existing technology able to scan end-to-end encrypted messages without undermining users’ privacy.

According to research by Imperial College academics Ana-Maria Cretu and Shubham Jain, published last May, AI driven Client Side Scanning systems could be quietly tweaked to perform facial recognition on user devices without the user’s knowledge. They warned of more vulnerabilities that have yet to be identified.

“Once this technology is rolled out to billions of devices across the world, you can’t take it back”, they said.

Law enforcement agencies are already considering the possibilities it offers.

In July 2022, the head of Johansson’s Directorate-General, Monique Pariat, visited Europol to discuss the contribution the EU police agency could make to the fight against CSAM, in a meeting attended by Europol executive director Catherine de Bolle.

Europol officials floated the idea of using the proposed EU Centre to scan for more than just CSAM, telling the Commission, “There are other crime areas that would benefit from detection”. According to the minutes, a Commission official “signalled understanding for the additional wishes” but “flagged the need to be realistic in terms of what could be expected, given the many sensitivities around the proposal.”

Ross Anderson, professor of Security Engineering at Cambridge University, said the debate around AI-driven scanning for CSAM has overlooked the potential for manipulation by law enforcement agencies.

“The security and intelligence community have always used issues that scare lawmakers, like children and terrorism, to undermine online privacy,” he said.

“We all know how this works, and come the next terrorist attack, no lawmaker will oppose the extension of scanning from child abuse to serious violent and political crimes.”

This investigation was supported by a grant from the IJ4EU fund. It is also published by Die Zeit, Le Monde, De Groene Amsterdammer, Solomon, IRPI Media and El Diario.

Serbia’s ‘Trust Deficit’ in Management of AI Needs Addressing

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In a world increasingly driven by artificial intelligence, AI, public trust in the institutions developing and implementing this transformative technology is paramount.

From smart cities to personalized healthcare, AI has the potential to revolutionize every aspect of our lives. However, its rapid development raises ethical and societal issues. In Serbia, as in many other parts of the world, there is a palpable tension between the promise of AI and the public’s trust in the institutions at the forefront of its development and application.

A recent study has delved into the public’s trust in various actors involved in the management and development of AI for the public’s best interest. The results reveal the need for a comprehensive approach to address the trust deficit and foster a more inclusive and transparent AI ecosystem.

On the one hand there is discussion in the scientific community about the application of AI. On the other, there is a gap regarding public attitudes about this use. In addition to the main ethical issues associated with the use of AI, there are also issues of people’s awareness and their knowledge about it, as well as trust not only in AI but in those who develop and apply it. All of this is necessary to implement AI as successfully as possible.

Concern about AI fed by distrust in institutions generally


Photo by EPA-EFE/SASCHA STEINBACH

In Serbia, public distrust extends beyond the realm of AI and encompasses a broader skepticism towards political actors and the situation in the country in general. A history of political instability, corruption and a lack of transparency in decision-making processes has fueled this distrust. The erosion of democratic norms, which were weak to begin with, has contributed to a pervasive distrust in public institutions and political actors.

Moreover, the Serbian government has faced criticism for handling crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and its perceived lack of accountability. These factors have compounded the mistrust and skepticism toward the government and other political actors. One example of damaged trust is the misreporting of COVID-19 deaths originally reported by a BIRN report in the first year of the pandemic. This was later confirmed by the study published in Annals of Epidemiology that shows the number of deaths was more than threefold higher.

Consequently, the Serbian public has a general sense of disillusionment, which extends to their perception of AI development and implementation. In the context of AI, this broader distrust manifests itself in skepticism toward the government’s ability to manage and develop AI that serves the public’s best interests. The results of the recent study reflect this sentiment, revealing a significant trust deficit in the government, the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Justice. It indicates a preference for non-governmental and international actors over national and governmental institutions in the development and management of AI.

US public also has misgivings


Photo by Pixabay

The research “US Public Opinion on the Governance of AI” (Zhang and Dafoe, 2020) showed that American citizens showed low trust in government organizations, corporate institutions and decision-makers who should develop and apply AI in the public interest.

Regarding trust in actors to develop and manage AI, university researchers, and the US military are the most trusted groups to develop AI: The US public trusts university researchers (50 per cent, a fair or a great deal of confidence) and the US military (49 per cent). Americans express slightly less confidence in tech companies, non-profit organizations (e.g. OpenAI), and US intelligence organizations. They rate Facebook as the least trustworthy of all the actors.

Generally, the US public expresses greater confidence in non-governmental organizations than in governmental ones. Some 41 per cent of Americans express a great or fair amount of confidence in tech companies.

Individual-level trust in various actors to responsibly develop and manage AI does not predict one’s general support for developing AI Institutional distrust and does not predict opposition to AI development.

New Ipsos polling finds the similar results regarding American mistrust in government or companies.

Serbs trust their government least of all


Photo by EPA/RALF HIRSCHBERGER

In Serbia, a study has been conducted within the research project “Ethics and AI: Ethics and Public Attitudes towards the Use of Artificial Intelligence” from 2021-2022.

The study aimed to examine various aspects related to the use of AI, among which was the trust in different institutions to develop and use AI in the public’s best interest. The following were questioned: the government, the army, the RS Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Justice, public companies and local governments, researchers from universities, international research organizations (such as CERN), technology companies (e.g. Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft), and non-profit AI research organizations (like OpenAI).

The results showed that the public has the least trust in the government of Serbia, followed by the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Justice, while the most trust is in researchers from the University and international research organizations (such as CERN). It was shown that even 70 per cent of respondents have no confidence in the government, and 66.4 per cent in the Ministry of Interior of the RS.

From a hierarchical point of view, respondents have the most trust in researchers from the university, international research organizations, non-profit organizations for AI research, and technology companies, then significantly less in the Ministry of Health, the army, public enterprises, and local governments, the RS Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the government.

Addressing the ‘trust deficit’ requires more transparency


Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (L) talks during the Bled Strategic Forum in 2020 focused on cybersecurity, digitalisation and European security. Photo by EPA-EFE/IGOR KUPLJENIK

Addressing the trust deficit in Serbia requires a multifaceted approach beyond AI and addresses the root causes of distrust in political actors and public institutions. Firstly, there is a need for greater transparency in decision-making processes across all levels of government. This can be achieved by implementing open government initiatives, public consultations, and increased access to information. Secondly, efforts must be made to tackle corruption and strengthen the rule of law. This includes implementing comprehensive anti-corruption measures, enhancing judicial independence, and ensuring accountability for public officials.

Lastly, in the context of AI, involving the public in the decision-making processes related to developing and implementing this technology is crucial. This can be achieved through public consultations, citizen assemblies, and other forms of participatory decision-making. Additionally, there must be a concerted effort to educate the public about AI’s potential benefits and challenges and to address their concerns transparently and openly.

In a world increasingly driven by AI, trust forms the bedrock of a socially and ethically responsible approach to harnessing the potential of this transformative technology. By addressing the trust deficit in Serbia and fostering a more inclusive and transparent approach to the development and implementation of AI, we can build a stronger and more resilient society better equipped to navigate the challenges and opportunities of the AI era.

What needs to be achieved regarding this topic is educating the public about artificial intelligence and increasing transparency and dialogue between the public, experts, the private sector, and the state. How can this be accomplished? The first step is education. Secondly, more transparency is also needed in decision-making processes related to the implementation of AI. It is necessary to act in two directions: to educate the general public in Serbia and to increase transparency and dialogue between the public on the one hand and the state and the private sector on the other.

 Understanding the nuances of public trust in this context is essential for developing policies and practices that are ethically sound, socially acceptable, and successful in harnessing the potential of AI for the betterment of society.

The trust deficit in Serbia, particularly in institutions developing and implementing AI, is a symptom of a broader crisis of confidence in political actors and public institutions. As AI continues to transform every aspect of our lives, it is crucial to address this trust deficit to ensure that the development and implementation of this technology are ethically sound, socially acceptable, and, ultimately, successful.

Marina Budic is a Research Assistant at the Institute of Social Sciences in Belgrade. She is a philosopher (ethicist), and she conducted a funded research project, Ethics, and AI: Ethics and public attitudes towards the use of artificial intelligence in Serbia.

 

The opinions expressed are those of the author only and do not necessarily reflect the views of BIRN.

Bosnian Sentenced for Threatening BIRN Journalists on Facebook

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The Municipal Court in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo on Friday gave Nefail Cehic a suspended three-month prison sentence for “endangering the security” of BIRN journalists in Bosnia. 

The indictment stated that Cehic was fully aware that his actions endangered the safety of, and caused distress to employees of BIRN BiH, when he made a serious threat to their lives on August 7, 2020.

He sent a message from his Facebook profile “Ljepota prirode” to the Facebook profile “Detektor” of the Bosnian branch of Balkan Investigative Reporting Network in Sarajevo, containing a serious threat.

Cehic’s message came after BIRN published an analysis and the 116th episode of the “TV Justice” magazine entitled “Can Former ISIS Fighters in BiH Be Prosecuted for War Crimes?” 

The episode discussed the possibility of prosecuting returnees from the Syrian battlefields not only for terrorism but also for war crimes, following the practice of some European countries that have increased penalties for joining the terrorist organization known as Islamic State, IS.

The accused insulted and verbally abused BIRN BiH journalists, stating, among other things: “All of you should be dealt with swiftly.” Prosecutors stated in their indictment that this caused a feeling of personal threat and distress among employees of the newsroom.

His sentence will not be executed if the defendant does not commit another criminal offence within one year of the verdict.

Bosnia CSOs Warn that New FOI Bill Will Limit Citizens’ Rights

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A group of 20 civil society organisations from Bosnia and Herzegovina, gathered in the Initiative for Monitoring European Integration, has issued a warning on “the shortcomings of the Draft Law on Freedom of Access to Information of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” which Bosnia’s state-level government, the Council of Ministers, adopted on April 12. 

“The adopted Proposal would significantly limit access to information of public interest, given that it contains a long list of exceptions or possible restrictions on access to information,” the Initiative said, adding that the new law would threaten “already acquired rights and achievements,” which is not in accordance with international practices. 

“The proponent of this law turned the European standard of open and free access to public information into an exception, not a rule, which in practice could lead to the impossibility of accessing a large amount of information of public importance,” they added. 

The Initiative underlined that the Ministry of Justice, in charge of drafting the law, had ignored more than 200 comments and proposals sent by the organisations during the consultations period in 2021. 

They also noted that the ministry also did not consider recommendations by “competent institutions of the European Commission and SIGMA regarding the formation of a new independent body that would perform inspection supervision of the implementation of this law”. 

“The members of the Initiative are preparing amendments to the adopted Proposal in order to improve it and bring it into line with international standards,” the Initiative added, inviting other CSOs, media, citizens and international community to join the discussion on the law, before it is voted in the House of Representatives of the state-level parliament. 

Bosnia’s current Law on Freedom of Information was enacted in 2000. In 2001, similar legislation was adopted at entity levels. Meanwhile, in Brcko District, a separate administrative district of Bosnia, the Instructions for the Implementation of the Freedom of Access to Information Law are already in effect.

Albania Urged to Strengthen Cyber Defences Following Attack

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Albania Freezes Diplomatic Ties with Iran Over Cyber-Attacks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Online Threats and Hate Speech Show no Signs of Decline

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Online threats to journalists and politicians in Serbia, Hungary

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

Hate speech still mars North Macedonian online environment

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


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

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

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

Fake news, denigrated women and fear of retaliation in Romania

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

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


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

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

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

Phishing and online scams hit Serbia

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

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

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

Greek Police Charge Known Photojournalist in Search for Arsonists

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Police detain a protester following clashes in central Athens, Greece, 9 November 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/YANNIS KOLESIDIS GREECE OUT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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