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The pressure comes at a precarious time for the digital environment in Turkey, where  BIRN digital rights monitoring has witnessed a surge in government bans on social media platforms, as well as individual accounts.

Turkey expedites platform bans

Supporters of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party at a rally in Diyarbakir, Turkey, March 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE/SEDAT SUNA

In an unprecedented move, 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 X account owners include the honorary president of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Al Monitor’s chief correspondent Amberin Zaman, the Yeni Yasam newspaper and Cansu Ozdemir, who leads the Left in Hamburg and has been a member of Hamburg’s parliament since 2009.

It came amid a series of website bans by Turkish institutions across August. Following a ban on global story-sharing platform Wattpad in July, the national communications regulatory agency blocked access to Instagram on August 2 without stating the reason or duration of the ban.

It was later revealed that Instagram had been blocked over its failure to remove illegal content on matters such as “the sexual abuse of a child”, “insulting Ataturk [the founder of Turkey]”, and items on “gambling and drugs”. Following discussions between META and the Turkish government, the access ban was lifted on August 10.

The Istanbul municipal statistical agency, however, said that Turkey’s decision to block Instagram caused daily economic loss of about 52.1 million euros. Businesses, citizens, and social media influencers were financially affected by the ban. More than 10 per cent of total e-commerce in Turkey is conducted on social media, according to the Electronic Commerce Operators Association’s Board of Directors Vice President Emre Ekmekci.

The content removals also involved META, which shadowbanned several posts following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran. META removed content including that on respected independent media outlet T24.

However, the ban by the Turkish government on Instagram was not the final one. A court in Turkey blocked the popular gaming platform Roblox for allowing content that could allegedly “lead to child abuse”.  Though the decision does not cite the link between the platform and potential child abuse, some experts believe it is linked to previous complaints around child safety relating to private chatrooms and other features the platform offers.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s Information Technologies and Communication Authority blocked the domain of the Read the Docs platform, which offers online documentation creation and hosting services for software projects. Readthedocs.io was blocked on the grounds of alleged illegal gambling, though evidence of the link remains undisclosed.

Serbian activists pressured for supporting environmental protests

Protesters march during a rally in Belgrade against plans to start mining lithium in Serbia, August 2024. Photo:  EPA-EFE/ANDREJ CUKIC

The June announcement of lithium exploration licences for the Anglo-Australian corporation Rio Tinto prompted protests around the area of Jadar, where mining for the metal is set to take place.

Protests over the granting of licences spread across the country in the following months, peaking in August, when thousands gathered in Belgrade to oppose the mining plans.

BIRN Digital Rights Monitoring has recorded at least three instances of pressure by the government and other unidentified individuals against journalists, researchers and activists, who are linked to the protests and who have published investigations into lithium mining online.

United Media, which operates the media outlets N1, Nova, Danas, and Radar, alerted the public and international community about the latest alleged government smear campaign against their group, which they see as an attack on independent media in Serbia.

They claimed that in the most recent incident Serbia’s president and premier publicly accused the director of the media group of plotting the president’s murder.  The pressure intensified in recent weeks following the nationwide lithium mining protests.

Aleksandar Matkovic, a research associate at the Institute of Economic Sciences in Belgrade, received death threats on his Telegram app a few days after publishing an article about lithium on the Danas newspaper’s website. “One of them was written in German. It mentions the murder of my younger brother and demands that I withdraw from public [life] if I want to continue breathing and writing,” Matkovic said.

Additionally, police questioned activist Ivan Bjelic over an Instagram post casting doubt over the legality of the Jadar lithium mining project. After speaking at a protest in Gornji Milanovac against the mine, officers asked him, along with the organiser, to make a statement at the police station. There, he was told a warrant had been issued to search his home over the Instagram post which reported that the constitutional court had declared the Jadar project unconstitutional, the activist said.

Police told him that this was deemed a call for the violent overthrow of the constitutional order of Serbia. The activist noted that they asked him to show the post – which they photographed – and checked his phone to see if he had other accounts on Instagram.

Monitoring: Turkey was covered by Hamdi Firat Buyuk, Serbia by Tijana Uzelac, North Macedonia by Bojan Stojkovski and Goce Trpkovski, Bosnia and Herzegovina by Elma Selimovic, Aida Trepanic and Sara Velaga Drek, Kosovo by Flaka Fazlija, Montenegro by Djurdja Radulovic, Croatia by Katarina Gulan, Romania by Adina Florea, Albania by Nensi Bogdani, Hungary by Akos Keller-Alant.

The idea of ‘electronic government’, or e-government, is to eradicate queues, reduce paperwork and provide users with quicker, more convenient access to public services, from health to taxation and schooling.

In the Balkans, however, the roll-out has only been partial and faces a range of challenges, according to BIRN’s report, Open Data and Digitalisation in the Western Balkans: The State of Play,

“There remains a significant gap in their capacity to fully leverage digitalization across various dimensions, including skills development, system integration, cybersecurity, and user-centric solutions,” said an Albanian digital security expert.

Limited services

BIRN’s report highlights how Balkan countries are performing badly in e-government development; the online offering of public services remains limited.

In 2022, Serbia ranked 40th on the UN’s E-Government Development Index, ahead of Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia in 63rd, 71st and 80th place respectively. Bosnia and Herzegovina came in at 96. Kosovo was not listed.

The governments of all six Western Balkan countries covered by the BIRN report have specialised e-government websites and all e-government portals analysed by BIRN are active and up to date; new services are created on a regular basis.

Serbia launched ‘eUprava’ in 2010. A decade later, the portal was updated with a new design and functionality adapted for mobile and tablet devices. The address remained the same – euprava.gov.rs.

Serbia offers 186 unique e-government services, enabling users to access documents, certificates and services concerning education, family, healthcare, employment and urban planning.

Montenegro’s e-government system claims to provide over 500 services under the jurisdiction of 50 public institutions, but 349 of these are instructions on how to use government services.

North Macedonia’s offers services from 170 public institutions, out of a total of roughly 1,300.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has three separate e-government portals – one for each entity and a third for the autonomous district of Brcko. But there is no information on how many services these offer.

The e-Albania portal offers 1,237 online services and boasts a total of almost 3.2 million registered users. The portal, which is managed by the National Agency for Information Society, AKSHI, is accessible in web, iOS and Android mobile app versions, with more than 415,000 users also registered on the mobile app.

Kosovo’s portal, e-Kosova, offers more than 30 e-government services and also makes possible online payments.

Cybersecurity concerns

With increasing digitalisation comes greater scrutiny of digital security given the amount of sensitive, personal data carried on such portals.

“E-Kosova is managed by a private company which does not have a security clearance,” a civil society digital expert told BIRN. “There are no certified security officials because we have no laws that classify information, classify who got access, etc… the security behind e-Kosova has been the main problem.”

Montenegro has already paid dearly for lax security, after its e-government portal was one of the targets of a major ransomware attack in 2022. Services have not yet fully recovered.

In a report published in June, BIRN urged Montenegro to upgrade its cyber security institutions to tackle potential threats, as well as increase public awareness about private data protection, digital rights and online security.

The same year, Albanian government systems, albeit not on the e-Albania platform itself, were hit in July and September by large-scale cyber-attacks, which led to the temporary disruption of most online public services.

An FBI-aided investigation pointed the finger of blame at Iranian hackers, saying they had accessed the Albanian system 14 months earlier.

Lack of financial resources

Digitalisation and the accompanying security requirements do not come cheap. Balkan countries are particularly limited in how much they can invest.

“State budgets for digital transformation are often limited and insufficient to achieve comprehensive progress,” a representative of the institution in charge of e-government services in Bosnia and Herzegovina told BIRN. “Budgetary allocation priorities are not always focused on digitalisation, resulting in a lack of funds for digital transformation projects.”

EU and international actors such as the UNDP and German GIZ provide some financial support for e-government projects but one expert told BIRN that these are project-based and not long-term solutions.

Additional funds are required to promote e-government services once they are developed.

A 2023 survey by NALED in Serbia found that 61 per cent of Serbian citizens lack proper information on the eUprava portal and how it works.

Read the full report here.

Moldova’s online space – websites and social media platforms – is not regulated, unlike TV and radio, where the state has strong control over outlets’ ownership and funding through the country’s Audiovisual Council. Police investigate online hate speech or threats, but not disinformation and intentionally fake news.

A recent report by Watchdog Community, a think tank in Chisinau, said the fugitive Moscow-linked oligarchs Ilan Shor and Veaceslav Platon spent about 136,000 euros on Facebook promotions in June, July and August. 

According to the report, these sponsored campaigns aim to sow panic in society, discredit the European integration process of Moldova and “whitewash” Russia’s image.

“Russia is actively preparing for destabilisation during the presidential election campaign and the referendum on European integration,” it said.

Ilan Shor, the mastermind of the “Grand Theft” of one billion US dollars from the Moldovan banking system, is currently hiding in Moscow. Veaceslav Platon, the mastermind behind the “Russian Laundromat”, which laundered over $20 billion dollars in Moldova, is hiding in London.

According to DataReportal, Moldova currently has 2.14 million Internet users and 1.58 million users of social networks. About 73.6 per cent of these internet users used at least one social media platform in the first month of 2024. 

The most popular platforms are TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. At the beginning of 2024, Facebook had 1.30 million users. Between January 2023 and January 2024, 100,000 new users registered on the platform.

Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, has argued that for the past two years, it has used enforcement tactics against influence operations – both covert and overt – and continues to monitor for attempts to manipulate public debate around the world, particularly ahead of elections.

Fugitive oligarch Ilan Shor, former leader of the now-outlawed Shor Party, at a press briefing in February 2019. Photo: EPA-EFE/Dumitru Doru

Promoting Kremlin narratives

Internet pages sponsored by Shor and Platon often feature content related to the classic themes of Russian propaganda in Moldova, and are currently focused on the presidential elections and the referendum on EU integration that both take place on October 20.

“These disinformation campaigns can have a powerful impact on the results of the polls this fall and especially on the constitutional referendum,” the director of WatchDog Community, Valeriu Pasa, said.

The WatchDog Community report notes that Shor and Platon are sponsoring Facebook posts on various pages associated with them, promoting the idea that the referendum on the EU is useless and that its results will have no impact at all on the EU accession process.

“The idea is [also] promoted that the central government is imposing unjustified sanctions on the [mostly pro-Russian autonomous] Gagauzia region, thus undermining local stability. It is argued that the authorities are exaggerating military risks [from Russia] to gain political advantage, denying real threats to national security,” the report said.

The report presents other false narratives being promoted, including that the current government accepts any condition imposed by the EU, that Moldova is a “colony of the West”, and that the leadership of Moldova are “puppets of the West”.

“The false narratives say that the Moldovan government would unconditionally accept all EU requirements to receive European funds, implying a lack of sovereignty and discernment in the negotiation process,” the report stated.

The director of the think tank, Valeriu Pasa, believes that this campaign in the online environment is strongly influenced by fake news and conspiracies spread by Russia and its agents of influence in Moldova.

Pasa urges Moldova’s media to publish as much truthful news stories as possible, including reliable information and figures about EU integration, comparing the standard of living, incomes, and quality of life of people in Russia and the European Union.

“This will help create an objective opinion based on facts and not lies. Secondly, it is essential that information about fakes is present in the news and the press,” the expert said. 

Natalia Morari, partner of the fugitive Moldovan oligarch Veaceslav Platon, at her launch as an independent candidate for the 2024 presidential elections. Photo: EPA-EFE/Dumitru Doru

Money spent on disinformation

Shor alone promoted at least 104 ads through 11 Facebook pages between July 1 and 30, spending 30,500 euros on them. 

According to the report, the number of his sponsored ads increased in July by 20 compared to the period from June 1 to 30, though the budget for them remained unchanged. In the week of July 24 to 30, Shor spent some 4,741 euros on advertising promotion. 

“Three pages belong to ‘Renaissance’ Party members, officially supported by Ilan Shor: Veaceslav Jucov, Vasile Bolea and Alexandr Nesterovschi. The rest of the pages use a similar visual identity and have profile photos with the Moldovan flag and usernames that allude to either media organisations or patriotic organisations,” the report notes.

Platon promoted around 82 advertisements between July 1 and 30 on his own personal Facebook page and that of his partner, former journalist Natalia Morari, who is running in the presidential elections. Platon spent about 19,500 euros. In the week of July 24 to 30, Platon spent approximately 3,600 euros on promoting ads on the two pages.

“In the public space, the two oligarchs continue to promote a positive image of the Russian Federation, using various media tools and personal relationships,” the report states.

In addition to buying sponsored ads on Facebook, Platon also actively promotes content on YouTube and through Google Ads.

The Watchdog Community report, by monitoring public opinion manipulation campaigns and using polls it recently commissioned, concludes that this paid-for content has affected the public opinion of Moldovan citizens.

“We are seeing a very high impact of disinformation campaigns and manipulation of public opinion. They aim first and foremost at the referendum on accession to the European Union,” Valeriu Pasa said.

Facebook owner Meta has made efforts to block fake news from, or on, Moldova. 

In a June report, Meta specified that it had eliminated over 1,326 Facebook accounts, 80 pages, a group and an Instagram account, deemed to be part of a disinformation network aimed at the public in Moldova. The messages came from Shor or his right-hand deputy, Marina Tauber, who both are hostile to the pro-European government.

Wired magazine, a US monthly, reported earlier this year that Shor had managed to place “political advertising” on Facebook ahead of Moldova’s November 2023 local elections, long after he had been stopped from doing so as a person under US bans.

Wired wrote that Meta earned more than $200,000 from a Facebook campaign in which last summer and autumn Shor promoted pro-Kremlin views and sought to influence public opinion in the November 2023 elections.

The Intelligence and Security Service of Moldova, SIS, has stated that it sent Meta a list of accounts that promote disinformation, especially during elections, as early as 2023.

Meta has said it is working with the Centre for Strategic Information and Countering Disinformation, a Moldovan government-run unit. However, the social media company did not respond by the time of publication to BIRN’s questions about increased advertising spending by pages affiliated with Shor and Platon that contain anti-EU messages.

According to Free Web Turkey’s Internet Censorship Report 2023, 5,881 of the 14,680 blocked news articles concerned corruption and other alleged wrongdoing by authorities. Of those, 5,150 were about specific public officials, 2,575 about individuals and organisations close to the AKP and 854 about Erdogan and his family. More than 380 were articles reporting on previously blocked content.

Ali Safa Korkut, the author of the report, said the authorities were effectively mounting a cover-up.

“During 23 years of rule by Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, lawlessness has become widespread. They are openly violating people’s rights,” he told BIRN. “When the news spreads and makes noise, they use these bans to cover up their irregularities and corruption.”

“Courts decisions, bans, criminal complaints make it impossible for journalists to do their jobs. The news you wrote with a lot of effort and time is blocked. You do it again and it is blocked again.”

Court orders are just the start

One of the most frequently blocked news agencies in Turkey is the pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya Agency.

“Since our establishment in 2018, our website was blocked 38 times by court order,” the editor, Diren Yurtsever, told BIRN. “When our website is not blocked, we face court orders blocking our news articles.”

It does not stop there, however.

Every time a story is blocked, Yurtsever said she is summoned for questioning. “There are seven ongoing court investigations against me,” she told BIRN.

Most of the agency’s articles that are blocked concern the question of Kurdish minority rights in Turkey, corruption involving government-appointed local officials and crimes against women and children.

“A complaint by the Gendarmerie General Command is enough to block our website and start an investigation against on suspicion of being a member of a terrorist organisation,” Yurtsever said.

Other recent examples includes an unexplained decision this month by Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority, BTK, the national communications regulatory agency, to block access to Instagram. Then on August 7, citing the need to protect children, a Turkish court blocked access to the online gaming platform Roblox. The Turkish language services of Deutsche Welle and Voice of America remain inaccessible in Turkey, with authorities citing their failure to obtain new licences from the state.

Blocks hit revenues and hurt ‘collective memory’

Blocked content affects a media outlet’s online visibility and therefore its advertising revenue.

“Small independent media survive on ads; the more readers, the more advertising revenue,” said Korkut.

“These blocked news articles usually are very popular and widely read news. So when this news is deleted, both the earnings of that day and future earnings are lost. The more links and URLs deleted on Google, the more you fall behind. And when it is deleted, no profit can be made on social media platforms that make payments, such as YouTube and Twitter.”

This is corroborated by the case of Mezopotamya Agency.

“Constantly blocking content technically harms us,” said Yurtsever. “We see this decline the most on Facebook and TikTok. Our Facebook page is constantly being closed and people are not following our news page. In this regard, we see that censorship has a result.”

The ultimate aim, she said, is to manipulate the collective memory of the Turkish people.

“Even if the criminals leave or lose power, they do not want to leave behind a trace,” Yurtsever said, and warned of the knock-on effect.

“Targeting us sends a message to other journalists and the media, saying that if they do what we do, they will also be prosecuted and arrested,” Yurtsever told BIRN. “Unfortunately, there are outlets that had to accept this auto-censorship. But we are fighting to prevent this trace from being erased from the collective memory.”

Korkut agreed. The impact is far greater than a single blocked news article, he told BIRN.

“When a news item is blocked, not only is a link blocked but the freedom of the press, freedom of expression and the right to access information are also violated,” Korkut said. “Furthermore, when a news item is blocked, we turn a blind eye to the crimes of the people in the article and ignore the victims.”

Korkut said he saw no reason to expect any improvement soon. He noted a ruling by Turkey’s Constitutional Court in January declaring unconstitutional the BTK’s power to block access to online content. The ruling should enter into effect in October, but Korkut said the government will simply “enact an even worse law”.

“In a country where even Instagram is blocked, it is very easy for this government to block a media outlet that might hurt it.”