A new report prepared by journalist Ali Safa Korkut from the Media and Law Studies Association, MLSA says Turkey’s courts in 2022 blocked hundreds of accounts and thousands of tweets on X (Twitter).
“In 2022, access to at least 4,427 Twitter URLs, including 487 Twitter accounts and 3,940 tweets, was blocked. This number was reached by 393 court decisions,” the report entitled “Baby, The Bird is Dead. 2022 Twitter Access Blocks Report” funded by the EU said.
The report also classified the blocked tweets. According to this, 2,106 tweets on public officials, 1,126 tweets on illegal betting sites and terror, 316 tweets on individuals and 118 tweets on public institutions were blocked.
The report underlined that certain courts lead the access block decisions.
“When the distribution of the authorities that blocked the most tweets is looked at, three criminal courts of peace from Ankara were in the top five. Ankara 6th Criminal Court of Peace ranked first with 2,024 tweets, followed by Ankara 3rd Criminal Court of Peace with 153 tweets and Ardahan Criminal Court of Peace with 140 tweets,” the report wrote.
The legal basis for access blocks was mostly because of violations of personal rights and protection of national security.
“In 2022, 2,909 tweets were blocked based on this article [violation of personal rights]. This means that almost three out of every four tweets are blocked for this reason. In second place was ‘protection of national security and public order’, with 1,031 tweets,” the report wrote.
In terms of blocked accounts, the main reason cited was protection of national security.
“In 2022, 465 accounts were blocked based on this article [protection of national security and public order]. In second place was the violation of ‘personal rights’ specified in Article 9 of Law No. 5651. The number of accounts blocked based on this article in 2022 is 22,” the report noted.
Courts and public agencies are increasingly ordering access blocks to social media content. The watchdog Freedom House’s Internet Freedom Status ranking classifies Turkey as “not free”.
This article has been amended on December 20, 2023 to clarify that the report is prepared by journalist Ali Safa Korkut not by the Media and Law Studies Association, MLSA.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s claim that the government can rapidly align the country’s laws with those of the EU using Chat GPT – so avoiding the costs that come from translations and lawyers – has drawn a sceptical response from some experts.
BIRN sent a request to the Prime Minister Office asking how the initiative would be implemented when no laws currently regulate the use of AI in the country, nor is there a national strategy about it.
It replied that they would use a “model that is internationally regulated” and have reviewed measures regarding the ethical and responsible use of AI.
“First, the model only consumes public data to perform the necessary information-retrieval,” it told told BIRN. “Secondly, regarding accountability, we emphasize that the model is an assistance tool for alignment experts, never a substitute, increasing their productivity and efficiency,” it added.
But some doubt the planned use of AI will amount to much.
Medlir Mema, Head of the Program on Artificial Intelligence and Global Governance at the Global Governance Institute in Brussels and professor of International Relations in the United States, told BIRN that, “regarding legislation or national strategy, it is clear that there is no such thing in Albania”.
“As for the data, it is impossible for OpenAI to do its work without having access to state data, including the laws in force in Albania, as well as those on private individuals. When it comes to confidential data, it is difficult to separate them from such a complicated process as completing the chapters for membership in the EU,” Mema told BIRN.
“Finally, the argument for not replacing people contradicts PM Rama’s speech in the SP [Socialist Party] Assembly, where he specifically underlined this argument. The truth is that the chapters are not completed without human supervision,” he concluded.
Another expert, Ornela Sollaku, from the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies-UOM, told BIRN that an important factor to be taken into consideration in this case is the legal gap.
“This legal gap may lead to uncertainty among citizens and EU officials regarding its effectiveness. The indiscriminate use of AI raises ethical concerns related to privacy, transparency, and the potential for unintended consequences,” Sollaku told BIRN.
She stressed that human expertise remains key in the process. “An over-reliance on AI systems can foster a false sense of security. Human expertise and oversight remain essential to validate and interpret the results of AI algorithms,” she said.
When Rama presented the initiative earlier in December, he said that after a conversation with Mira Murati – who is of Albanian origin and works at OpenAI and has lead the company’s work on ChatGPT – he realised the platform could be used to align the country’s laws with those of the EU.
“I asked if it is possible that, instead of recruiting an army of translators, a battalion of lawyers and spending who knows how many tens of millions of euros to prepare the mountain in Albanian with EU legal measures, we should do this through Chat GPT,” Rama said. “This is how the work started with Mira and a joint team that we created with AKSHI and its experts,” he added.
As part of a wider attempt to curb revenge porn and child sexual abuse, the European Commission has designated the well-known adult companies Pornhub, Stripchat and XVideos as Very Large Online Platforms, VLOPs, which means they will come under closer scrutiny.
“I welcome the designations of Pornhub, XVideos and Stripchat as Very Large Online Platforms. It will allow for higher scrutiny and accountability of their algorithms and processes. The DSA [Digital Services Act] demonstrates once again that it is an essential tool to ensure that technology respects the fundamental rights of European citizens,” Margrethe Vestager, Vice-President of Europe Fit for the Digital Age, said.
By February 17, 2024, the three companies will need to adopt specific measures to protect minors from harmful content and address the dissemination of illegal content.
Pornhub is a pornography video-sharing website based in Cyprus. Stripchat [Technius Ltd.], also based in Cyprus, is a live sex and entertainment community, and XVideos, based in the Czech Republic, is a pornographic video-sharing and viewing website. According to the Commission, the three companies fulfil the threshold of 45 million average monthly users in the EU.
“The criteria to determine if a platform is “very large” in the sense of the Digital Services Act are very straightforward,” stated Thierry Breton, Commissioner for the Internal Market.
“Any online platform with more than 45 million users in the EU has special obligations because of its scale. We have already designated 19 Very Large Online Platforms and Search Engines. We will continue to designate platforms that meet the thresholds and make sure that they comply with their obligations under the DSA … creating a safer online environment for our children is an enforcement priority under the DSA,” he added.
Pornhub on its website wrote that it has 33 million average monthly users, not 45 million: “As of July 31, 2023, Pornhub has 33 million average monthly recipients of the service in the European Union, calculated as an average over the period of the past six months,” it said.
The Commission’s decision comes amid rising concern about revenge porn and child sexual abuse.
Revenge porn, on its own, is not defined as a criminal offence in most Balkan countries. Greece made it an independent criminal offence in the criminal code in 2022 following the case of a TV presenter, Stathis Panagiotopoulos, who shared the sexual content of his partner on a porn platform. Besides that change, the porn industry is unregulated in Greece.
The Commission under the DSA designated 17 VLOPs and 2 Very Large Online Search Engines, VLOSEs, in April 2023, aiming to protect users online, including minors, requiring the companies to assess and mitigate their systemic risks and to provide robust content moderation tools.
The designated platforms were Alibaba AliExpress, Amazon Store, Apple AppStore, Booking.com, Facebook, Google Play, Google Maps, Google Shopping, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter, Wikipedia, YouTube, Zalando, Bing and Google Search.
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.
Supporters of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party at a rally in Diyarbakir, Turkey, March 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE/SEDAT SUNA
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.
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.
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.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic talks to media during elections in April 2022. Photo: EPA-EFE/ANDREJ CUKIC.
Political influence over the media remains stubbornly present in the Balkans both within EU member states and in accession candidate countries, says a new report by a Brussels-based independent organisation, the Balkan Free Media Initiative, which was published on Wednesday.
The BFMI report, ‘The Invisible Hand of Media Censorship in the Balkans’, says that across southeast Europe, the news media is in a state of transition and turmoil.
“The new European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) is falling short in the Balkans, one of the most challenging environments for media independence in Europe. There are doubts around the will and the ability of national regulators to fully enforce the Act’s provisions. And the Act itself needs strengthening if Brussels’ laudable ambitions for improved media freedom are to be met,” the report argues.
The BFMI’s director, Antoinette Nikolova, says murky, politically connected media ownership and state censorship are common problems in the region.
“If the Balkans lose, Europe loses as well. The region occupy a strategic geographical position and act as a crossroads of influence. Russia acts not only directly through the Balkans but also via figures like the Hungarian PM Viktor Orban, who exerts media influence in Slovenia, North Macedonia, and other areas,” Nikolova told BIRN.
In Bulgaria, the report notes incremental improvements to the media landscape and a lack of censorship but says challenges remain as the country grapples with its seventh election in three years.
“The dominance of the Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party (GERB) has been replaced by a succession of caretaker governments, which has allowed editors and journalists to operate with greater latitude in their reporting”, the report observes.
“As Bulgaria navigates this complex media landscape, its ability to resist political and external pressures will be crucial for safeguarding media freedom,” it adds.
Greece is the lowest-ranking EU state in terms of media environment, and threats to journalists persist, the report says.
“The Greek media landscape is characterised by a troubling nexus between politically connected business leaders — often referred to as Greece’s oligarchs – political leaders, and media service providers, shaping a complex environment where media freedom is under strain,” it warns.
Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s government, re-elected in 2023, will be tasked with aligning domestic laws with the EMFA.
“Mandating strong provisions for media pluralism and editorial integrity to decouple the owners’ interest with the operation of their media outlets is essential. However, current Greek regulations have not been effective in addressing this issue and the EMFA itself does not go far enough in this regard,” the report notes.
In Serbia, the report says, the media situation is particularly concerning, due to its influence on other Serbian-speaking communities in the Balkans, including Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Nikolova said media freedom in Serbia has been in sharp decline.
“The 2023 national media laws have increased the state’s ability to exert control of the media. While Serbia has been a candidate country for over more than a decade, the reality is that under the current administration, Serbia has used tricks and evasion tactics to sidestep commitments to the European Union. It selectively implements agreements, playing a double game,” Nikolova said.
As a candidate country, the report says, Serbia must align with European norms in areas like competition, governance, rule of law, and media, including the EMFA.
“The ruling SNS [Serbian Progressive] party has tightened its grip on power, fostering a media space dominated by progovernment outlets that often disseminate pro-Kremlin disinformation and stoke ethnic tensions, with repercussions felt across the region. Without key improvements in media freedom, the nation will continue to spiral towards authoritarianism and pose a threat to democracy and stability in the region,” the report warns.
In Montenegro, the report says, the mainstream media are primarily aligned with either the governing Europe now! party, or the largest opposition force, the Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS
“With both parties ideologically aligned on EU accession for Montenegro, anti-EU rhetoric in mainstream media is less prevalent in the country than in Serbia. Serbian influence remains ingrained in the Montenegrin media landscape and pro-Serbian narratives continue to be promoted in a number of outlets as a result,” the report notes.
Nikolova said the growing political and financial influence of Serbian outlets and owners in Montenegro complicates domestic efforts to ensure media plurality and independence.
“Strengthening regulatory oversight and ensuring fair distribution of resources are crucial for aligning with the EMFA, broader EU directives and the overarching principle of protecting media freedom in the country,” she added.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the report noted, media landscape is insufficiently served by both the country’s own complex regulatory framework and the provisions set out by the EMFA.
“There has been a substantive weakening of the protections for journalists and, according to a report from the European Commission, a ‘backsliding’ in media freedom in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” the report says.
In Bosnia’s majority-Serb entity, Republika Srpska, the media landscape is heavily influenced by political actors An influential development, the report noted, happened in August 2023, when Republika Srpska president Milorad Dodik signed a decree making defamation a criminal act.
“The biggest challenge for the EMFA in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro is that its provisions are not directly tied to their EU accession,” Nikolova concluded.
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