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Speakers from Balkan Investigative Reporting Network, BIRN’s digital rights programme and Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net project said in a joint X Space event on December 21 that digital rights violations increased in the region this year.

“We saw a rise in different types of violations. This year, we determined 1,427 different types of violations compared to last year’s 782,” Ivana Jeremic, Balkan Insight’s Deputy Editor and one of the editors of BIRN’s recent BIRN Digital Rights Violations Report, said.

Jeremic added that the most common digital rights violations were hate speech and discrimination, digital manipulation and computer fraud.

“Some of the key findings were that regional and international crises increased digital rights violations in the region, such as the war in Ukraine and the ongoing Kosovo-Serbia dispute, which led to a lot of misinformation but also to attacks based on someone’s ethnicity,” Jeremic said.

Jeremic highlighted the need for effective legislation to counter digital violations that most countries in the region lack.

Hamdi Firat Buyuk, a Balkan Insight journalist and one of the editors of BIRN’s recent BIRN Digital Rights Violations Report, said Turkey is using draconian laws to target free speech. “Turkey is one of the countries that passed draconian laws and regulations to target freedom of speech and internet freedoms,” Buyuk said.

Gurkan Ozturan, from the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom and Turkey country author at the Freedom on the Net report of Freedom House, said Turkey was regressing fast in terms of digital rights.

“Unfortunately, I am here to talk about one of the first countries in terms of regression in the field of digital rights and liberties in the past decade” Ozturan said, recalling that only a month after Turkey’s disinformation law was passed in October 2022, authorities limited access to social media platforms following a terror attack.

“Then there were earthquakes [in February] and then the election period [in May] which brought Turkey further down in Freedom House’s internet freedoms index. That was a horrible year,” Ozturan said, underlining access blocks, misinformation campaigns and data leaks from government agencies on citizens’ private data.

Tijana Uzelac, a BIRN Serbia journalist and country monitor of the BIRN Digital Rights Violations Report, said there were more than 100 registered digital rights violation cases in the reporting period from September 2022 to September 2023.

“The most frequent targets of these violations were citizens in more than 50 cases,” Uzelac said and added that the majority of violations in Serbia fell under “threatening content and endangering security”.

Uzelac said a massive school shooting in Serbia had also marked the year. “The number of digital rights violations spiked drastically in May after two mass school shootings in Belgrade and in villages near Mladenovac,” Uzelac added.

Mila Bajic, from SHARE Foundation and Serbia country author at the Freedom on the Net report of Freedom House, said the election campaigns provided an example of the climate in online media in Serbia.

“The online media ecosystem is essentially just an extension of the traditional media and the majority of the things we have been seeing is everything we can see on the public broadcasters and in the printed tabloid media. It is essentially copy-pasted to the online environment, which means that the online environment is very biased and in favour of the ruling majority [led by President Aleksandar Vucic],” Bajic said.

Bajic underlined that a lot of intimidation tactics online were deployed against journalists and civil society members, including an attempted spyware attack on civil society using Pegasus-like spyware. “That was thankfully not a successful attack but it does indicate that it was a state-sponsored attack,” Bajic said.

Azem Kurtic, Balkan Insight’s Bosnia correspondent and country monitor of the BIRN Digital Rights Violations Report. In Bosnia, said: “The most common victims [in Bosnia] are unfortunately citizens due to a quite specific ethnic, historic and current political context. For instance, during the commemorations of the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, you saw a surge in hate speech and discrimination but also genocide denial, which is a criminal offence in Bosnia.”

Kurtic added that an online femicide had also shocked the country and the region. “We had a shocking femicide in August when a man killed his ex-wife in a livestream on Instagram. The video stayed online for more than three hours and it was seen more than 70,000 times,” Kurtic added.

Cathryn Grothe, from Freedom House, underlined a new emerging threat: the malicious use of Artificial Intelligence, AI.

“One of our big findings is generative use of AI supercharges online disinformation space. For decades governments have been deploying methods to manipulate online discussion, whether through pay commentators or automated Twitter bots or trolls or things like that kind, or more of those traditional forms of spreading disinformation, and with the growing power of AI tools those tactics are able to be automated and they are able to spread so much further,” Grothe said.

The joint X space organised by BIRN and Freedom House can be listened to on this link.

More about digital rights violations in the Balkans can be found at BIRN’s Digital Rights Violations Report 2022-2023, “Digital Rights In A Time Of Crisis: Authoritarianism, Political Tension And Weak Legislation Boost Violations” and in Freedom House’s Freedom on the Net 2023 report, “The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence”.

Grigoris Dimitriadis, nephew and former secretary of Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, filed exorbitant strategic lawsuits against public participation or SLAPPs against media and journalists over reports about the wiretapping scandal known as “Predator-gate”, in which he is allegedly involved, a union said.

The Journalists’ Union of Athens daily newspapers, ESIEA, on Thursday claimed Dimitriadis “unleashed a flurry of new lawsuits against many journalists and the media and with exorbitant and exterminating claims”, to intimidate journalists and limit access to information.

Dimitriadis sent lawsuits to the media outlet Efimerida ton Syntakton, EfSyn, the media group Alter Ego and to journalist Dimitris Terzis, and for a second time to journalists Thanasis Koukakis, Nikolas Leontopoulos, Thodoris Chondrogiannos and Christoforos Kasdaglis.

In August 2022, Dimitriadis resigned following revelations of his alleged involvement with Intellexa, a company that sells Predator, an illegal spyware in Greece.

He denied wrongdoing and sued the media involved – Reporters United, EfSyn, as well as the journalist Koukakis, whose phone was infected with Predator.

His resignation was followed by that of the head of the National Intelligence Service, EYP, Panagiotis Kontoleon.

The wiretapping scandal, which has occupied the Greek media since 2022, concerns the use of Predator to monitor or attempt to monitor journalists, politicians and other public figures.

Dimitriadis now accuses Koukakis of indulging in systematic defamation of him through X [formerly Twitter] by reproducing articles insulting him over the wiretapping scandal. He is seeking 300,000 euros plus an extra 1,000 euros per day if he does not withdraw his tweets

“It is no coincidence that Dimitriadis is suing journalists and media at a time when important aspects of the wiretapping scandal are being revealed,” Koukakis told BIRN.

“The specific revelations reveal the role he played in the case in a period when he was responsible for Greece’s national intelligence service. The journalists involved in covering this unprecedented scandal they are not daunted or discouraged from such practices and are providing Greek justice with new evidence on a daily basis,” he added.

Dimitriadis filed a second legal action against EfSyn and the journalists Nikolas Leontopoulos, Thodoris Chondrogiannos and Christoforos Kasdaglis, members of the investigative media outlet Reporters United, over EfSyn’s cover of November 3 regarding the wiretapping scandal.

It wrote that Dimitriadis’ mobile phone number was used to infect 11 people with Predator.

The former PM’s secretary has demanded 2.45 million euros in compensation for the moral damage which he claims to have suffered.

“The investigation by EfsYn and Reporters United on the wiretapping scandal is a matter of public interest as it concerns democracy and the rule of law in Greece. Dimitriadis decided, instead of giving more answers, to proceed with legal actions before and after the publications and to file lawsuits. However, all these will not silence us,” Chondrogiannos told BIRN.

EfSyn and its journalist Dimitris Terzis received another legal action from Dimitriadis over the publications in the print edition and on the efsyn.gr website that followed the November 3 report.

“Both on the front page of 3/11 and in the related publications of our printed and electronic edition up to 8/11, there is neither the intention nor the suggestion of a slanderous reference,” stated EfSyn in a written announcement.

“Neither in the original publication nor in what followed in the wake of the original is it stated that the SMS were sent by Dimitriadis himself. It is reported that infected Predator messages were sent to 11 recipients using his mobile phone number,” it added.

The Council of the European Union announced on November 30 that it had reached a provisional agreement with the European Parliament over a directive designed to protect journalists and human rights defenders from abusive court proceedings, such as SLAPPs.

The International Press Institute, IPI, a global organisation dedicated to the protection of press freedom, has accused Greece, Italy and France of lobbying to legitimise state spying on journalists.

“IPI is concerned by revelations that France, Italy Greece and other governments are pushing for loopholes for ‘national security’ regarding the surveillance of journalists amidst the final stages of EU negotiations on the European Media Freedom Act,” IPI wrote on X (Twitter).

Three EU media, Investigate Europe, a cross-border team composed of EU reporters, Disclose, a French non-profit organisation, and Follow the Money, a platform for independent investigative journalism based in Holland, revealed in an investigation that Greece, France, Italy and Cyprus are among seven EU countries lobbying on a broader wording in the European Media Freedom Act, EMFA, which would permit the use of spyware for “national security” against journalists.

After the Council of the EU on June 20 adopted the first draft of the EMFA, Reporters Without Borders RSF called on MEPs to reverse the “national security” exception, describing it as a danger to journalism.

“We call on the amendment’s authors to reverse it and we urge the European Parliament to reject this useless and dangerous provision, which would poison this law from within,” wrote RSF.

“That the interior ministries of established democracies could associate themselves with such rogue-state practices represents a grave precedent in the European process,” it added.

The investigation contains a file written by a high-ranking German official, presenting the minutes of the EU Council of Permanent Representatives meeting on November 22 about the EMFA.

The file reveals that Italy took the strictest stance on national security. France, Finland and Cyprus also stated they were “not very flexible” on this issue. Sweden, Malta and Greece also agreed “with some nuances.”

The EU Council and parliament and Commission will decide on Friday on the new EMFA law, which will set the provisions for journalists’ surveillance – or not – by state authorities.

Seventeen EU media organisations on December 1 called on MEPs to adopt a robust wording in the final version of the EMFA that would ensure a high level of journalistic protection and recognise the conditions under the ECHR and case-law under which interferences with journalists’ freedoms can be justified, “in particular the requirement of a prior order by an independent and impartial judicial authority”, they wrote.

Greece has attracted international attention for the wiretapping scandal of journalists, politicians, business people and other individuals by the secret services using the illegal spyware Predator.

Eighty-two accounts on X operated by Kurdish politicians, journalists, publishers and media houses have been blocked in Turkey by a court for “making terrorist propaganda”.

“The decision was made on the grounds of ‘protecting national security and public order’ and claimed that these people ‘made propaganda for a terrorist organisation with all their posts’”, Free Web Turkey, a platform established by the Media and Law Studies Association, MLSA, to monitor internet freedoms in the country, announced on Monday.

The X account owners include the honorary president of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, HDP, Al Monitor’s chief correspondent Amberin Zaman and Yeni Yasam newspaper.

The same court also blocked access to the X account of a German politician of Kurdish descent. Cansu Ozdemir, who leads the Left in Hamburg and has been member of Hamburg’s parliament since 2009.

The court in Gumushane province in northwestern Turkey ordered the access block on August 20 based on a request from the Gumushane Provincial Gendarmerie Command. The court decision said that the blocked accounts “contain content that supports terrorist organisations”.

Rights groups, opposition and international organisations say the autocratic government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan often deploys courts to target its critics online.

A report published in July by the Free Web Turkey platform identified at least 219,059 items of online content blocked by court order in 2023, including almost 198,000 internet domains, 14,680 news articles, over 5,600 social media posts and some 743 social media accounts.

The Turkish government blocked access to several social media platforms earlier in August, including META’s Instagram and the popular online game platform Roblox. The ban on Instagram was lifted on August 10.

Alfred Peza. Photo: LSA

Fifteen months after he was controversially appointed, Alfred Peza has resigned as General Director of Albania’s public radio and television, RTSH.

The resignation was confirmed to BIRN by Leka Bungo, head of the RTSH board, who said that Peza did not give any reasons for the resignation but said it was irrevocable.

The Association of Journalists of Albania, AJA, said it was informed about the resignation and called on the board “to open the competition for RTSH director without any delay, according to the broadcaster’s statute”.

“Only a transparent, independent and merit-based process can ensure the public broadcaster is returned to the public,” AJA said. “We will closely monitor the process and insist that this process is completely kept out of political hands,” it added.

Peza’s election as RTSH general director was contested because of his political engagements in the past as an MP and as Secretary for Relations with Media with the ruling Socialist Party until September 2021.

During his time at the helm of RTSH Peza has faced continuous criticism for overseeing mass dismissals of journalists and workers.

At the end of June, at a hearing of the Parliamentary Committee for Media and Education, Peza was grilled because none of parliament’s recommendations for the service had been implemented by RTSH.

According to a parliamentary report, RTSH has issues with dismissals and appointments, falling incomes and unclarity over the use of money, but Peza insisted that the dismissals were carried out in accordance with the law and were aimed at increasing performance.

The head of this parliamentary committee, Ina Zhupa, from the opposition Democratic Party, welcomed the resignation. “RTSH’s liberation [from Peza] is a small victory in the battle for legality,” Zhupa wrote on Facebook.

By law, Albania’s public broadcaster is politically independent but the board is elected by parliament while the general director is elected by the board. Members of the current board have been elected mainly by votes of the ruling Socialists.

Peza did not respond to BIRN’s request for comment by time of publication.

A Collective for Feminist Thought and Action activist writing graffiti on the Klan Kosova building on Monday around midnight. Photo: Screenshot/Facebook.

Activists are calling for legal action after ‘Big Brother VIP Kosovo’, a reality TV show aired by Kosovo broadcaster Klan Kosova, on Monday introduced a new contestant who has been charged with domestic violence.

The new contestant, Atilla Kardesh, is the former husband of singer and beauty pageant winner Drenusha Latifi, who made the domestic violence accusations against him.

Kardesh has denied the allegations.

Presenters of the TV show and Klan Kosova suggested that introducing such a contestant to the house in which the contestants are filmed was an interesting development, but human rights activists and members of the public slated what they called the deliberate promotion of domestic violence.

Latifi was asked to confront her ex-husband alone within the house, where she called him a “physical abuser” and accused him of also abusing his first wife. Later, she was shown crying while presenters asked her if she “would consider collaborating with him for the sake of the children”.

Flutura Kusari, a media rights lawyer, on Facebook on Tuesday said that she had filed a complaint against ‘Big Brother VIP Kosova’ and Klan Kosova to the Independent Media Commission, IMC.

“Freedom of speech and freedom of media are not absolutes. These rights and freedoms come with responsibility and it is the responsibility of Klan Kosova TV channel to exercise these rights by broadcasting material in accordance ethical and legal norms,” Kusari wrote.

She said that she had asked the IMC to issue the highest fine the law provides for – 100,000 euros.

On Tuesday, the National Coordinator and Inter-ministerial Group Against Domestic Violence, Gender-Based Violence and Violence Against Women, a governmental body, condemned Klan Kosova’s decision to bring Atilla Kardesh into the show.

It declared that the decision “aims to minimise and normalise a dangerous phenomenon that our society is facing, such as domestic violence” and called for Kardesh to be removed from the show immediately. It also called for the IMC to take measures against Klan Kosova.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Centre for Information, Criticism and Action, a civil rights organisation, held a protest in the Klan Kosova building.

“’Big Brother VIP Kosova’ should be shut down immediately! This programme promotes repeated examples of violence, sexual harassment and extremely sexist and homophobic discussions,” the organisation wrote on Facebook. 

In response, Klan Kosova condemned what it called a “hooligan attack”. “A vehicle where four women were located entered the space of the television [building] from where dangerous tools were thrown … which risked … seriously endangering the lives of all the workers,” the TV station said. 

BIRN contacted Klan Kosova and the IMC for a comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Kosovo’s biggest women’s rights organisation, the Kosovo Women’s Network, said that the show “contradicts our joint efforts to fight gender-based violence, a widespread phenomenon that affects the well-being of women and girls in our society”.

At around midnight on Monday, an activist group, the Collective for Feminist Thought and Action, protested by writing graffiti on the Klan Kosova building: “KLAN abuses women; Boycott KLAN; Abusers Out”, the graffiti said. 

The Basic Court of Pristina told BIRN in March this year that it had not approved a request to detain Kardesh for domestic violence, deeming that a protection order not to approach Latifi was sufficient. The court confirmed it had received an indictment charging him with domestic violence. 

In August 2023, Amnesty International concluded that despite demands for Kosovo authorities to take action against domestic violence, authorities continue to fail victims. The report concluded that a narrow focus on prosecutions left too many domestic violence victims struggling to access justice and support when leaving abusive situations.

In May 2023, BIRN reported that a lack of financial independence or support from family and society means many women in Kosovo who try to flee domestic violence end up returning to abusive husbands.

Google’s building in Atlanta, Georgia, US. Photo: EPA-EFE/ERIK S. LESSER.

The Srebrenica Memorial Centre told BIRN a fake location found on Google Maps by its staff while booking accommodation online has now been removed.

Almasa Salihovic, spokesperson for the Memorial Centre, said the fake location was in the middle of the cemetery where the bodies of the Srebrenica dead are buried.

She described it “another in a series of insults” to victims and survivors of the Jully 1995 genocide of Bosniaks by Bosnian Serb forces led by Mladic.

She said it could be another attempt to deny the genocide happened or a “practical joke”.

Mladic was convicted of genocide and other wartime crimes by the Hague Tribunal and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Bosnian law prohibits the denial of genocide and the glorification of war criminals. The person who put the non-existent ‘Ratko Mladic Park’is criminally liable, said lawyer Edvin Agic.

Agic said that by doing it, “the perpetrator of this act is denying and minimising the circumstances under which people were killed on a massive scale, which deeply offends the victims and survivors”.

Lawyer Mirnes Ajanovic said that if the state prosecution receives a complaint, it is obliged to investigate and find out who was responsible. He added that it is easy to follow digital traces, such as IP addresses and user accounts, which can serve as key evidence to identify the perpetrator.

“The person responsible for adding this fake site must be criminally prosecuted under the law. This situation also raises an important question of the responsibility of digital platforms such as Google, which must take a more active role in prevention and more effective monitoring, so as to prevent such abuses in the future,” Ajanovic says.

The state prosecution said it has not yet received a complaint about the incident.

Salihovic said that after the Ratko Mladic Park tag was visible for one week, Google deleted it from the map.

Gabriela Chiorean, communications manager at Google, told BIRN that its automated systems and trained operators work constantly to monitor maps for suspicious behaviour, including incorrect changes to locations.

Chiorean added that Google has made it easier for users to report misleading locations and inappropriate content.

“Enabling users to suggest changes to the maps helps us have more complete and up-to-date information, but we are aware that sometimes incorrect or bad changes can be suggested,” she said.

“When this happens, we do everything we can to solve the problem as soon as possible. We use manual and automated systems to detect spam and fraud, but we do not share details about our processes, so as not to reveal information to those having bad intentions,” she added.

Emir Alibasic, a court expert in information and communications, said that anyone can request a change of data, from Google which will be accepted if it meets the criteria set by the algorithm.

“When it comes to placing certain locations on the map, in this case, the person who uploads that information must have a Google account, which anyone can register, unfortunately,” he said.

Avdo Avdic. Photo: N1.

The BH Journalists Association and Free Media Help Line on Friday demanded urgent security measures for a journalist and his family following reports that the leader of an organised crime group, Dino “Cezar” Muzaferovic , had plotted to kill him. 

They urged Bosnia’s State Investigation and Protection Agency, SIPA, the Intelligence and Security Agency, OSA, and the Ministry of Interior of Sarajevo Canton to provide Avdo Avdic and his family with constant police protection and special surveillance. 

The journalists’ association recalled that Avdic “has been reporting for years on international criminal networks linked to drug cartels and their leaders, which has made him the target of serious threats and constant pressure”. 

The press statement, issued a day after Muzaferovic was arrested in Slovenia, added: “Regrettably, the threats have not only come from individuals in criminal circles but also from politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina, including high-ranking state officials. 

“These individuals have attempted to professionally discredit and dehumanize Avdic, portraying him as a ‘criminal’, to create an atmosphere of violence and security risks around him,” it added.

Over the past three years, Avdic has reported on Muzaferovic’s alleged connections to organised crime groups in Bosnia and abroad. 

Muzaferovic, originally from Velika Kladusa, northwest Bosnia, was arrested in Slovenia on Thursday over the November 28 fatal shooting of another Bosnian citizen, Satko Zovko, earlier known as Satko Kekic.

Avdic claimed Muzaferovic and his group planned and carried out the murder, recalling that Zovko had been a witness to another murder carried out by the same group in May 2022 in Velika Kladusa. 

Slovenia’s authorities, after the arrest, notified their counterparts in Bosnia about the alleged plan to kill Avdic. 

Despite his arrest, journalists’ groups in Bosnia believe the threat to Avdic and his family remains real. 

Nasa Stranka, a party that is part of the ruling coalition at all levels in Bosnia and Herzegovina, backed the journalists’ appeals.

“Attacks on journalists threaten democracy and consequently the state itself. In this regard, protecting media freedom must be a priority for any democratic government,” it said in a press statement. 

“We trust that the investigative and police authorities will thoroughly assess the danger faced by Avdo Avdic and provide him with adequate protection,” it added. “To that end, we also believe and will advocate for journalists to be granted the status of public officials.”

Avdic did not reply to BIRN’s request for comment by the time of publication. 

The BH Journalists’ Association noted that previous attacks on Avdic had not been solved. It called on the police and prosecutorial bodies to disclose the measures they will take, now that credible information about a planned murder has surfaced.

Media representatives and civil society and international organisations told BIRN’s Digital Rights Annual Conference in Tirana, Albania, that worsening digital rights violations in the Balkans were having “profound effects” on people’s lives.

“The report shows that digital rights violations have profound effects on everyday lives, only amplifying already existing human rights issues and barriers. While compiling it, we have attempted to paint the current picture but also to forecast future trends,” Ena Bavcic, BIRN’s Digital Rights Research Lead said.

Despite the challenges, Bavcic said there is still hope for a safe internet.

“Challenges are numerous but there is some hope and we hope this report will be used to cast light on steps that need to be taken to improve online safety for everyone,” Bavcic said, referencing BIRN’s Digital Rights Violations Annual Report 2023-2024, published on Wednesday.

Bavcic highlighted that the main digital rights violations in the region over the past year include disinformation, hate speech and cyber attacks. She also underlined the malicious use of AI.

“Most of the cases [in the report], such as computer fraud, phishing, manipulated videos impersonating others and other similar digital rights violations were ‘improved’ by AI. AI is here to stay,” Bavcic said.

She predicted that the malicious use of AI will preoccupy the digital agenda in the coming years, as it is used increasingly to target politicians, political opponents and journalists and to spread hate speech and disinformation. Deep-fake videos are increasingly used against girls, women and LGBTQ+ individuals.

Speakers at the event highlighted legislative changes that have worsened digital rights violations.

“There is a lack of public debate and a lack of information about stakeholders [when making new laws] and so we wake up to a law that was passed at 5am by the majority in parliament. Women and the LGBTQ+ community are targeted specifically under these laws,” Gurkan Ozturan, Media Freedom Monitoring Officer at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedoms and Turkey Rapporteur for Freedom House, said.

Ozturan recalled various adverse legal changes in Turkey and recent plans to adopt a Russian-style law labelling foreign-funded organisations as “foreign agents”. Similar laws have either been introduced or proposed by lawmakers in Hungary and Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity.

Speakers and participants at the event stressed the serious effects of digital rights violations on vulnerable groups, such as girls, women and LGBTQ+ groups.

One of the speakers, Xheni Karaj, director of Albania’s Aleanca, an NGO advocating for LGBTQ+ people, has faced serious threats online due to her activism and media appearances. “We don’t realise the damage these messages impose on activists and a whole movement, when the whole country sees you as a ‘public enemy’ just because of misinformation,” Karaj said. 

Karaj recalled getting death threats after a media appearance in which she spoke about the UK registering newborn babies on passports under Parent 1 and Parent 2, after which she said a similar system could be applied in Albania. However, the media twisted her statement and added a headline accusing Karaj of wanting to remove the traditional family from Albanian legislation entirely.   

“Many media outlets … started to reproduce this news, magnifying the disinformation that this news represented. I wasn’t following the media at the time but I was receiving a lot of death threat messages on my social media without even knowing why,” Karaj added. 

The Digital Rights Violations Annual Report 2023-2024 was co-funded by the European Union.

A day before the event, a documentary, Body of Shame, exploring the sexual abuse and harassment of women in Albania, was screened.

“Moreover, phishing attempts across the region, cyber-attacks and weak responses target digital economies and pose specific threats to some countries,” the report adds.

The report also highlights emerging threats, particularly AI-generated videos, photos and even voice recordings that pose a risk to economies and elections, examples of which were identified in Turkey, Serbia and Croatia, among others.

The report draws attention to the use of “harmful legislation” by governments, including Russian-style laws labelling foreign-funded organisations ‘foreign agents’ either introduced or proposed by lawmakers in countries such as Hungary, Turkey and Bosnia’s Serb-dominated Republika Srpska entity.

“The legislation has received harsh criticism from NGOs, independent media and international organisations,” the report says.

Legislation vs digital freedoms

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban delivers a speech in Budapest, October 2024. Photo: EPA-EFE/Szilard Koszticsak.

Besides ‘foreign agents’ laws, BIRN’s report draws attention to other worrying legislative initiatives by governments of some of the countries monitored.

These include Albania’s Ad Hoc Parliamentary Committee on Disinformation in 2024, tasked with looking into disinformation and foreign interference in media and democratic processes but criticised for its potential to restrict media freedom.

In Kosovo too, the government adopted in July this year a new Law on Independent Media establishing regulatory control over audiovisual content on online platforms.

“The Association of Kosovo Journalists, AGK has called the proposed changes to the new Law on the Independent Media Commission, IMC, an attempt by the government to control online media that have video content,” says the BIRN report. “This law is currently being revised by the Kosovo Constitutional Court due to opposition and civil society objections.”

Among the emerging threats is the malicious use of AI, a danger that governments have been slow to wake up to.

Albania, the report notes, “continues to have no legislation regulating the use of AI”, while in North Macedonia “there is no accurate data which could be provided by authorities on the use of AI for criminal purposes”.

“Similarly, in Montenegro, the Criminal Code does not define AI-generated manipulations per se,” the report says.

BIRN digital rights monitors also identified a surge in AI-powered cybercrime.

“Cybercrime cases have been constantly emerging, affecting the digital safety of citizens in the region,” the report states. “Some of the recurring cybercrime trends detected through our monitoring involve phishing scams involving post offices, banks and other institutions.  Scammers have also impersonated celebrities, political figures and journalists.”

In Croatia, for example, there were 20 cases of content manipulation during the reporting period, representing 14 per cent of the total number of digital rights violations in the EU country.

“These actions, often driven by artificial intelligence, were used to promote fraudulent schemes, mislead the public, and manipulate perceptions,” the report says.

“The main targets of these manipulations are Croatian citizens, public figures, politicians, and prominent individuals such as singers, actors, and entrepreneurs, as monitoring analysis shows. Attackers include fake accounts, scammers, and those using AI tools to create false ads or deepfakes, often linked to dubious investment platforms.”

Big Tech algorithms cause concerns

BIRN’s monitoring also identified issues with algorithms employed by the major tech companies. These are applied globally but are not adjusted to local contexts.

“This creates several problems for the local media, as the algorithms remain inconsistent and non-transparent,” the report explains. “The biggest example of this occurred in Bosnia when Meta started taking down content that mentioned the word ‘genocide’ during the Srebrenica Memorial Day [in July]. This so-called shadow-banning has happened to BIRN too, with content instantly disappearing from our social media pages.”

The report underlines the importance of legal protections and sanctions, citing the example of the EU.

“The EU provides better protection and can impose more concrete sanctions than the Western Balkan countries,” it says.

“This is both due to the developing EU regulations and the fact that the EU represents a much bigger market than the [Western Balkan] countries,” it adds. “An example of such adherence to the bigger markets by Big Tech can be seen in Turkey where large social media companies accept often non-democratic and untransparent regulations for the sake of preserving their audience.”

In August 2024, for example, X – formerly known as Twitter – agreed to appoint a representative in Turkey as required by the government, likely fearing more sanctions after an advertising ban was imposed.

“More worryingly, the first transparency report issued under CEO Elon Musk’s ownership of X in September 2024, revealed that Turkey ranked second only to Japan in government requests for content removal during the first half of 2024,” BIRN’s report says.

X received 9,364 requests from Turkey, with the company acting on 68 per cent of them, marking a significant rise in the platform’s compliance with government demands compared to previous years.

Read the full report here.