Twitter is reported to have suspended the accounts of at least 16 political figures in Serbia, all of them either members of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party or holders of senior state posts.
Political rights NGO CRTA on Friday named 13 ruling party MPs whose accounts have been suspended – Nevena Djuric, Sandra Bozic, Milica Nikolic, Jelena Obradovic, Aleksandar Markovic, Krsto Janjusevic, Dusan Radojevic, Jelena Zaric Kovacevic, Aleksandra Tomic, Stasa Stojanovic, Zoran Tomic, Andrijana Vasic and Olja Petrovic.
Twitter also suspended the accounts of Miroslav Cuckovic, the newly appointed Belgrade City Manager, and Slavisa Micanovic, a member of the Serbian Progressive Party’s main and executive boards.
The account of Arnaud Gouillon, head of the Foreign Ministry’s Office for Cooperation with the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region, has been suspended too. Gouillon is a French national, founder of the organisation Solidarité Kosovo.
According to screen shots that Gouillon and MP Stasa Stojanovic posted online, they were suspended for breaking Twitter’s rules and were not be able to post new content or to ‘like’ anything.
Stojanovic said on Instagram that she does not know why her Twitter account was suspended.
“I didn’t enter into any discussions, nor did I insult anyone, nor did I do anything bad, especially not there [on Twitter], there I mostly retweet, share and like [Serbian Progressive] party things, things that happen in our country, and above all beautiful things, about art, about culture,” Stojanovic said.
Gouillon implied in a message posted on Facebook that he was suspended over his comment about an opinion survey about whether people in Serbia think the country’s former province of Kosovo “is lost”.
“Twitter just suspended my account where I had 34,000 followers, without explanation! It’s scandalous! Look at my last tweet and decide for yourself if I wrote something wrong,” Gouillon wrote.
This is the third year in a row that Twitter has either down or added warning messages to accounts in Serbia.
In August 2021, Twitter labelled a number of well-known newspapers and TV stations in Serbia as media over whose editorial content the state exercises control “through financial resources and direct or indirect political pressures”.
In April 2020, Twitter removed almost 8,558 accounts that it said were “working to promote Serbia’s ruling party”, the Serbian Progressive Party.
“Cetinje is our light of freedom … we are coming !!!” reads one of the tweets published on the eve of the divisive enthronement of a new Serbian Orthodox Church Metropolitan in Cetinje, the former royal capital of Montenegro.
The tweet was one of thousands published between September 4 and 5 as violent clashes between police and opponents of the event rocked the country, and led to accusations that the opposition was fomenting a coup against the new government elected last year.
BIRN noted more than 4,150 tweets published over the weekend containing words “komite”, “ustolicenje” [“enthronment”] or “Cetinje”.
“Komitas” is a nickname for Montenegrins who are especially fierce in their defence of Montenegro’s statehood, the Montenegrin language and Church, their name recalling the resistance to Montenegro’s union with the Kingdom of Serbia in the wake of World War I.
Montenegro remained united with Serbia until it regained independence in 2006.
During the weekend, the word “ustolicenje” was mentioned in tweets 1,374 times, “Cetinje” 3,042 times and “komite” 499 times. BIRN used a browser add-on Tweet archiver to extract tweets mentioning these key words.
The dramatic rise in use of the term “komite” is illustrated by the fact that in the first seven months of this year “komite” was used more than 1,100 times, slightly more than twice the number of mentions over the past weekend alone.
Whether the online dispute contributed to the weekend’s violent events in Cetinje is hard to tell. Nevertheless, the violence that erupted in Cetinje as opposition parties and self-declared patriotic groups battled police while trying to stop the enthronement of the new head of the Serbian Orthodox Church was clearly echoed on social media.
The phrase “Cetinje will not fall !!!!!” was tweeted 14 times, while “Next year in Cetinje” [referring to “Dogodine u Prizrenu” often used to illustrate Serbian nationalists’ wish to regain control of Kosovo] was tweeted four times.
The most retweeted and liked tweets were one in favour of the new Metropolitan’s enthronement, and another defending the protesters in Cetinje.
The first was posted by Mustafa Jusufspahic, Muslim mufti of Belgrade, in which he wrote: “I congratulate the [Serbian Orthodox] Church, my clergy, and followers of the SOC, on the enthronement of the worthy Metropolitan of Montenegro and the Littoral, Joanikije.”
The other was posted by Ivan Vukovic, mayor of the capital, Podgorica, blaming Prime Minister Krivokapic for what he believed was unnecessary police violence: “I appealed to, begged @profKrivokapic … In vain. He proved unworthy of his office and entered the history of Montenegro as the one who, fabricating Molotov cocktails, gave the order to run over Cetinje and, as never before, humiliate our state. You rejoice today, but you will be ashamed while you yet llive.”
Many tweeters shared videos documenting the clashes between protesters and police.
Apelovao sam, molio @profKrivokapic … uzalud. Pokazao se nedostojnim funkcije i upisao se u istoriju Crne Gore kao onaj koji je, izmišljajući molotovljeve koktele, dao nalog da se pregazi Cetinje i, kao nikad, ponizi naša država.
A war of words on social media in Montenegro, mainly between pro- and anti-Serbian factions, took off in 2019 and intensified after elections last year ousted the long ruling pro-independence Democratic Party of Socialists, DPS. It peaked this weekend, with more than 4,150 tweets in just 48 hours.
In August, BIRN published an investigation examining the rise in online hate speech in Montenegro that turned into offline violence on Sunday.
Searching Twitter for six specific terms or hashtags used, BIRN extracted more than 7,000 local-language tweets between November 1, 2019 – when the row over a disputed religious law took off – and July 19 this year.
The six terms and hashtags used were “osvjezilo” [refresh], “#nedamosvetinje” [roughly, “We won’t give up our shrines”], “komite”, “#nikadvise” [“never again”], “FCJK” [“Faculty for Montenegrin Language and Literature in Cetinje] and “#crnogorskoprolece” [“Montenegrin Spring”].
The results showed a continued significant rise in their use over the period monitored.
“Komite”, for example, was used only 20 times in 2019, 830 times in 2020 and 1,104 times in the first seven months of this year. “Osvjezilo” was mentioned only four times in 2019, 161 times in 2020 and 1,091 times until July 19 this year.
The enthronement of the new Metropolitan of Montenegro has angered members of self-proclaimed patriotic organizations, called “komitas”, and members of the opposition parties, who claim that holding an event with strong Serbian connotations in the old royal capital is an insult to Montenegro’s “centuries-long struggle for sovereignty”.
In April, self-proclaimed patriotic organisations were already organising protests against the new government, in which pro-Serbian parties play an important role, accusing it of undermining Montenegro’s statehood.
The outgoing Bishop of Budimlja-Niksic was elected the new Metropolitan of Montenegro at the Bishops’ Council of the Serbian Church in Belgrade on May 29, to succeed the late Metropolitan Amfilohije, who died of coronavirus infection last year.
Montenegro, which declared independence in 2006, is a multi-ethnic society, deeply split between those who consider themselves Montenegrins, those who identify as Serbs and various other smaller groups.
Society is also split on religious lines. According to the last census from 2011, 72 per cent of Montenegrin citizens identify themselves as Orthodox Christians, and about 70 per cent of this number follow the Serbian Orthodox Church and 30 per cent identify with the Montenegrin Orthodox Church, which is not canonically recognised by other Orthodox Churches.
Twitter has started to label accounts belonging to various pro-government media in Serbia as state-affiliated media.
Among those it deems affiliated with Serbia’s government are the dailies Srpski Telegraf, Kurir, Informer, Politika, and three free-to-air channels – Happy, Prva TV and B92, RTV Pink’s online portal, as well as the news agency Tanjug.
The label appears on the profile page of the Twitter account and on the Tweets sent by and shared from these accounts. Labels contain information about the country the account is affiliated with and whether it is operated by a government representative or is a state-affiliated media entity.
These labels include a small icon of a flag to signal the account’s status as a government account and a podium for state-affiliated media. In the case of state-affiliated media entities, Twitter will not recommend or amplify accounts or their Tweets with these labels to people.
As noted in Twitter’s rules and regulations, Twitter defines state-affiliated media as “outlets where the state exercises control over editorial content through financial resources, direct or indirect political pressures, and/or control over production and distribution.”
None of the media affected has yet reacted publicly to the new rule.
Although the media in question are widely perceived as pro-government due to their highly positive reporting on the government and sharp criticism of the opposition, it is not clear what steps Twitter took to determine whether they fit the criteria. BIRN has asked Twitter about the methodology it used but has not received a reply by the time of publication.
The “Serbia state-affiliated media” label is visible on the pro-government media Twitter page. Photo: Screenshot/Twitter.com
Twitter announced it will start labelling state-affiliated accounts in August 2020, and a number of accounts linked to governments across the world have been labelled since then. However, Serbia is the first country in the Balkan region to be added to this list.
Serbia’s public broadcaster, Radio Television of Serbia, RTS, and Radio Television of Vojvodina, RTV, are among those whose accounts are also labelled state-affiliated.
Twitter said it draws a distinction between state-affiliated broadcasters and those working more independently like the BBC.
“State-financed media organizations with editorial independence, like the BBC in the UK or NPR in the US for example, are not defined as state-affiliated media for the purposes of this policy,” it said.
Currently, besides Serbia, labels appear on relevant Twitter accounts from China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Cuba, Ecuador, Egypt, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.
Last year, Twitter deleted 8,558 accounts engaged in “inauthentic coordinated activity” – some 43 million tweets criticising the Serbian opposition, independent media and individuals critical of president Aleksandar Vucic and his Progressive Party rule.
BIRN analysis showed that before it was removed, a network of accounts in the service of Serbia’s ruling Progressive Party found its way into the pages of pro-government tabloids, such as Informer and Kurir, disguised as the “voice of the people”.
For years, London-based writer and artist Mary Morgan has used social media to raise awareness and engage in debate, particularly Twitter and Instagram. Until the hate speech became too much.
“Anyone who spends time on Twitter knows it can be an absolutely horrible place,” said Morgan, whose work focuses on body politics, or the practices and policies through which powers of society regulate the human body.
So she began exploring alternative apps, settling on Clubhouse, an audio-based social network where users can join rooms and listen to, participate or moderate discussions on any topic that might interest them.
“The power of Clubhouse is that you can choose who you speak to. You can’t just randomly start messaging people with hate. I think that’s a real power to the platform,” Morgan told BIRN.
“Especially when it comes to activism, like-minded individuals and people who want to participate and learn will be drawn to houses and clubs, meaning we can all speak to and learn from each other in an environment that is encouraging of that.”
Launched in April 2020, Clubhouse currently boasts more than eight million users worldwide.
And it’s not alone in winning new users turned off by the inability of social media giants to find a way to filter out offensive content on their platforms – Mastodon, MeWe and CloutHub are just a few of the emerging names benefitting from a backlash against the likes of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Experts, however, warn that while these alternative apps might be motivated by high ideals, they face the same issues that have dogged the giants – how to provide transparency, avoid hate speech and protect privacy, while also making money.
“I understand the desire that people have to move to new platforms,” said Ayden Ferdeline, a Berlin-based public interest technologist.
“We desperately need more spaces for lawful speech, but we need these new platforms to be more transparent than Facebook or Twitter are, about how they operationalise their policies and procedures, and to be designed from day one to uphold and respect fundamental human rights.”
Turned off Twitter
A mobile phone displays the suspended status of the Twitter account of Donald J. Trump, 2021. Photo: EPA-EFE/MICHAEL REYNOLDS
Skopje-born Katarina P. spent 11 years on Twitter as an active member of the Twitter community in North Macedonia. Under an alias, Katarina, who declined to give her surname, used her profile to follow and comment on the events of any day in her home country and the wider Balkan region, engaging in sometimes heated debates.
Then, in February this year, Twitter suspended Katarina’s profile, without any specific explanation.
“I believe I got suspended because I came into a conflict with another Twitter account that was promoting misogyny through quasi-Christian Orthodox theology,” Katarina recalled. “After my impulsive reaction to these tweets, my account got suspended.”
She appealed to Twitter’s Support Team, but, after a generic response to say they would look into it her case, Katarina never heard back. She assumed she was shut down based on the complaints of “religious fanatics”, and was frustrated at the lack of communication from Twitter.
Stung by criticism over how social media was used in the storming of the US Capitol by Donald Trump supporters on January 6, Twitter and Facebook appear to have adopted more restrictive approaches to what can and cannot be posted on their platforms.
Experts, however, say that the use of Artificial Intelligence has resulted in a litany of errors, with AI lacking the required contextual and nuanced analysis to distinguish strong criticism from defamation and radical political opinions from expressions of hatred and racism or indictment to violence, particularly in languages spoken by far fewer people than, say, English, French, German or Russian.
Katarina believes she is a victim of this, and is already looking for an alternative platform where she can engage in debate.
“I liked Twitter since it was unique for the microblogging opportunities it offered,” she said. “I hope that a new network with similar content might appear soon. And I won’t lie when I say that I am looking forward to it.”
Friendlier Facebooks
A Facebook logo. Photo: EPA-EFE/Julien de Rosa
Clubhouse might still be in its beta stage, but it has attracted huge attention.
“It is a completely new and different app, and I see it as great replacement for all of the podcasts, with the addition that you can not only listen to them, but also actively engage in the discussion,” said Marija Andrejska, a digital marketing specialist in Skopje who began using Clubhouse this year. “I believe this is one fantastic feature that has never been seen before.”
The app has an air of exclusivity to it that not everyone likes, however. As an invite-only app, a new user has to be invited by an existing member to join, and it’s only available for those using iPhones.
“On the downside, I think it’s a pretty ‘elitist’ app, and I don’t like that,” Andrejska told BIRN. “Since it functions only by invites and it’s only for iPhone users, it can create closed, in a way segregated groups, which can be dangerous in the long run. Therefore, I think that you cannot really use Clubhouse with the same intensity as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or even TikTok.”
Turkish journalist Dilek Kutuk said Clubhouse was a great place to exchange ideas, “especially in Turkey”, where society is deeply polarised along political lines.
“I see many voice chat rooms in Clubhouse where people talk and share their opinions, as opposed to Twitter, where all you can see is fights between those that have different political opinions,” Kutuk told BIRN.
MeWe has also seen a recent spike in user numbers, particularly in January.
Launched in 2012, the network says it is built on “trust, control and love”, and represents a secure and private alternative to Facebook with more than 16 million worldwide logging in to it use its newsfeed, private text and video chats and groups.
Then there’s CloutHub, considered an alternative to Facebook and Twitter. With some 255,000 users, CloutHub describes itself as a “non-biased social network for people engaged in meaningful civic, social and political issues.” It has also seen a growth in its user base since the beginning of the year.
Mastodon, a decentralised open-source platform, is another under-the-radar alternative to Twitter. Users say it offers much better tools to protect privacy and fight online harassment than Twitter. Launched in 2016, the platform has more than two million users worldwide, and has been billed as a model for a “friendlier social network” dedicated to keeping out hateful content.
New apps under scrutiny
Illustration. Photo: Unsplash/Freestocks
But while such apps might bill themselves as ‘friendlier’, hate-free alternatives to Twitter and Facebook, experts say they face the same questions regarding privacy, transparency and how they moderate what’s being said, written or posted on their platforms.
“It is understandable why tech companies want to cleanse their platforms of mis- and dis- information, but neither their human moderators nor their technical measures are able to do so in a an accurate and human rights-respecting manner,” said Ferdeline.
Marcin de Kaminski, security and innovation director of Civil Rights Defenders, a Sweden-based international human rights organisation, said there is already concern.
“From our perspective, Clubhouse does allow users to speak freely, yes. But they also compromise on their users’ privacy, and there are no safeguards when it comes to protecting users from marginalised or targeted communities when it comes to verbal attacks, threats or slander,” said De Kaminski.
“Users that choose to use Clubhouse need to understand the risks, both technical and socio-legal.”
He warned of being blinded by the novelty of new features.
“It is easy to get mesmerized by new fascinating features and the possibility to have seamless voice chats with friends and colleagues may be tempting during the isolation of the ongoing pandemic,” De Kaminski told BIRN.
“However, Clubhouse has really made it possible to ask oneself very important questions – which data is harvested when you use the service and who has access to that data?”
Nor does being the new kid on the block necessarily protect against cyber attacks.
On Saturday, a report said that the personal data of 1.3 million Clubhouse users had been posted online on a popular hacker forum. Clubhouse denied being hacked and said that the data “is all public profile information from our app, which anyone can access via the app or out API [application programming interface].”
Privacy concerns have already prompted many users to migrate from messaging apps such as WhatsApp to the likes of Signal or Telegram, which claim to offer better privacy features.
Privacy and data protection strategist Lourdes M. Turrecha said any privacy failures could cost social media startups big.
“These privacy concerns are serious enough to create trouble for Clubhouse in a world where data protection enforcements have teeth – note the recent $650 million class action settlement following the $5 billion Federal Trade Commission’s fine against social media predecessor, Facebook,” said Turrecha.
“While these figures may seem like slaps on the wrist for a company like Facebook, a pre-revenue startup like Clubhouse doesn’t have the war chest to chalk these up as a cost of doing business, despite its $110 million in funding.”
Turrecha warned of the risks of users “trading” their privacy for greater freedom of speech.
“While neither speech nor privacy rights are absolute, I caution against pitting the two against each other through false tradeoffs,” she said. “We should demand technologies that protect both speech and privacy rights.”
At first, journalist Tugay Can had no idea why he had been taken in for police questioning on March 25 last year in the Turkish port city of Izmir. Then cybercrime officers told him he was suspected of spreading fear and panic because of a report he wrote, published two days earlier, about COVID-19 outbreaks in two community health centres in the city that were subsequently quarantined.
“After I confirmed it with my sources, I reported the situation”, Can, who at the time worked for the local Izmir newspaper Iz Gazete, told BIRN.
Pressed to name his sources, Can refused. Hours of questioning resulted in a charge of spreading fake news and causing panic. The case was dropped several months later, but Can’s chilling experience was far from a one-off.
According to the media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders, Can was among 10 Turkish editors and reporters interrogated just in March of last year concerning their coverage of the pandemic that had just begun.
“Governments are using the pandemic as an advantage over freedom speech,” Can said.
Turkey is well-known for its jailing of journalists, but it was not the only country in the region to employ draconian tools to control the pandemic narrative. Nor have journalists been the only targets.
BIRN has confirmed dozens of cases in which regular citizens have faced charges of causing panic on social media or in person. There are indications the true number of cases runs into the hundreds.
Whether dealing with accurate but perhaps unflattering news reports or with what the World Health Organisation called last year an “infodemic” of false information, governments have not hesitated to turn to social media giants to get hold of the information that could help them track down those deemed to be breaking the rules.
“Every government has a duty to promote reliable information and correct harmful and untrue allegations in order to protect the personal integrity and trust of citizens,” said Tea Gorjanc Prelevic, head of the Montenegrin NGO Human Rights Action.
“But any measure taken to combat misinformation should not violate the fundamental right to expression.”
Internet sites shut down
Illustration: Unsplash.com
Battling an invisible enemy, governments across the region have sought to restrict information while cracking down on media reporting or social media posts that deviate from the official narrative. ‘Misinformation’ has been criminalised.
Some of these restrictions were part of the states of emergency that were declared; others were introduced with new legislation that outlasts any temporary emergency decrees.
But who draws the line between the right to free speech and the need to preserve public order?
In its November 2020 COVID and Free Speech report, the Council of Europe rights body cautioned that “crisis situations should not be used as a pretext for restricting the public’s access to information or clamping down on critics.”
But that’s precisely what has happened in some countries.
In Hungary, the Penal Code was amended to criminalise the dissemination of “false or distorted facts capable of hindering or obstructing the efficiency of the protection efforts” for the duration of a state of emergency, first between March and June and again since November.
Parliament subsequently passed a bill making it easier for governments to declare such emergencies in future. In March, the government introduced punishments of one to five years in prison for spreading “falsehoods” or “distorted truth” deemed to obstruct efforts to combat the pandemic.
Similar restrictions were imposed in Bosnia’s mainly Serb-populated Republika Srpska entity and in Romania.
The Centre for Independent Journalism, CJI, an NGO that promotes media freedom and good journalistic practices, has raised concern that provisions enacted as part of a state of emergency between mid-March and mid-May 2020 to combat the spread of the novel coronavirus in Romania could hamper the ability of journalists to inform the public.
“The most worrying aspect of all this is, from my perspective, the limitations to the access to information of public interest,” said CJI executive director Cristina Lupu.
“The lack of transparency of the authorities is a very bad sign and the biggest problem our media faces now,” Lupu told BIRN, lamenting the fact it left the public without “access to timely information.”
In March 2020, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, raised concern about what it said was the “removal of reports and entire websites, without providing appeal or redress mechanisms” in Romania.
The Venice Commission, the CoE’s advisory body on constitutional affairs, stressed that even in emergency situations, exceptions to freedom of expression must be narrowly construed and subject to parliamentary control to ensure that the free flow of information is not excessively impeded.
“It is doubtful whether restrictions on publishing “false” information about a disease that is still being studied can be in line with the [Venice Commission] requirement unless it concerns blatantly false or outright dangerous assertions,” it said.
Instead of prevention, fines and prison terms
Early on in the pandemic, the Republika Srpska government issued a decree allowing it to introduce punitive measures, including fines, for spreading ‘fake news’ about the virus in the media and on social networks during the state of emergency.
According to the decree, anyone using social or traditional media to spread ‘fake news’ and cause panic or public disorder faced possible fines of between 500 and 1,500 euros for private individuals and 1,500 and 4,500 euros for companies or organisations. It is not known how many people have been fined. The decree was dismissed in April.
In Montenegro, Article 398 of the Criminal Code, introduced in 2013, foresees a fine or a prison sentence of up to 12 months for the spreading of false news or allegations which cause panic or serious disturbances of public order or peace. For journalists, the punishment runs to three years in prison. The law was hardly used until protests erupted at the end of 2019 over a controversial religious freedom law.
In July 2019, long before the pandemic, North Macedonia’s government unveiled an action plan to deal with ‘fake news’, and doubled down in March 2020 with a vow to punish anyone deemed to be sharing disinformation about the novel coronavirus.
Skopje-based communications and new media specialist Bojan Kordalov said authorities would be better off focusing on prevention and raising awareness.
“It is necessary to build a system of active and digital transparency, as well as to create a real strategy for fast and efficient two-way communication of institutions with citizens and the media, which means highly-trained and prepared staff for 24-hour monitoring and publication of official and credible information to the public,” Kordalov told BIRN.
In Turkey, media censorship, particularly of online outlets, has increased since the onset of the pandemic, according to a report published in November by the Journalists’ Association of Turkey.
According to the report, between July and September 2020 alone, RTUK, the state agency for monitoring, regulating and sanctioning radio and television broadcasts, issued 90 penalties against independent media, including halts to broadcasting and administrative fines.
The government also passed several new draconian laws concerning digital rights and civil society organisations, forcing social media companies to appoint legal representatives to respond to government demands, including those requiring the closure of accounts or deleting of social media posts.
It is not known how many people were investigated or arrested under the new measures, but administrative fines during the pandemic totalled roughly one billion Turkish liras, or 115 million euros.
‘Fake news’ arrests
Illustration: Unsplash.com
In North Macedonia, fake news stories shared on social media ranged from a report that a garage was being used as a COVID-19 testing facility to health authorities being accused of negligence that led to the death of two sisters from COVID-19 complications. One fake story claimed food shortages were imminent.
According to the country’s Ministry of Interior, by September 2020 authorities had acted on a total of 58 cases stemming from the alleged dissemination of fake news related to COVID-19. Thirty-one cases were forwarded to prosecutors and criminal charges have been pressed in three, a ministry spokesman told BIRN.
In Serbia, the penalty for the crime of causing disorder and panic is imprisonment for between three months and three years, as well as a fine. According to Serbian Interior Ministry, in the first two months of the pandemic dozens of people were charged.
After she broke news about the disarray in the Clinical Centre of Vojvodina, Serbia’s northern province, Nova.rs reporter Ana Lalic was questioned by police and her home was searched.
In neighbouring Montenegro, a heated political row over a disputed law on religions saw some people arrested for spreading panic even before the country confirmed its first case of COVID-19.
BIRN was able to confirm 14 cases in which journalists, editors and members of the public were arrested for causing panic.
Similarly in Turkey, the interior ministry investigated, fined and detained hundreds of people in the first few months of the pandemic over their social media posts. Later, however, the ministry stopped publishing such data.
Critics say the government was determined to muzzle complaints about its handling of the pandemic and the economy.
“Turkey in general has a problem when it comes to freedom of speech,” said Ali Gul, a lawyer and rights activist. “The government increases its pressure because it does not want people to speak about its failures.” Ali Gul.
In Croatia, no journalist has been charged with spreading fake news during the pandemic, but that’s not to say there was not any misleading information.
“Without any hesitation, I can say that, unfortunately, a large number of citizens have been involved in spreading false news,” said Tomislav Levak, a teaching assistant and PhD candidate at the Academy of Art and Culture in the eastern Croatian city of Osijek. “But in my opinion, in most cases, it is actually unintentional because they do not think critically enough.”
The Interior Ministry said that it had registered 40 violations of Article 16 of the Law on Misdemeanors against Public Order and Peace, “which are related to the COVID-19 epidemic”.
Rise in state requests to social media giants
The transparency reports of Facebook and Twitter shed light on the scale of government efforts to find and track accounts suspected of spreading panic.
According to Twitter, in 2020 emergency disclosure requests – when law enforcement bodies seek account information – accounted for roughly one out of every five global information requests submitted to Twitter, increasing by 20 per cent during the reporting period while the aggregate number of accounts specified in these requests increased by 24 per cent.
Turkey accounts for three per cent of all government requests for information from Twitter.
In the first six months of last year, Turkey registered a 160 per cent increase in emergency requests compared to the same period in 2019.
North Macedonia saw a 175 per cent increase.
In terms of removal requests, they multiplied several times over from Serbia, Turkey and Poland.
As for Facebook, Turkey last year submitted 6,171 requests, a threefold increase from 2019. In 4,904 cases, Facebook disclosed data, compared to 1,513 cases in 2019. Poland made 4,572 requests, up from 3,397 in 2019, and received information back in 2,666 cases, compared to 1,902 the previous year.
When it comes to legal process requests – when states ask for account information to aid an investigation – Turkey and Poland lead the region with 6,143 and 4,200 requests respectively, roughly double the numbers in 2019.
Compared to the same period in 2019, Facebook data shows a significant rise in all sorts of requests from most countries in the region.
In terms of preservation requests – when law enforcement bodies ask Facebook to preserve account records that may serve as evidence in legal proceedings – Bosnia and Herzegovina registered an increase of just over 150 per cent.
Turkey accounts for 3.55 per cent of and Poland 2.63 per cent of all government requests for information from Facebook.
Lawsuits designed to silence
And if that wasn’t enough, some media faced lawsuits that watchdogs say were designed simply to stop the free flow of information – a so-called SLAPP, or Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, the purpose of which is to censor or intimidate critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defence.
In Poland, the publisher and journalists of the weekly Newsweek Polska were subjected to a SLAPP for their reporting on Polish clothing company LLP, owner of the Reserved brand, which the weekly said had been sending masks bought in Poland to its factories in China despite a severe shortage in Poland.
The company is seeking damages of €1.37 million, an apology, the removal of articles about LPP published on March 22 and a “ban on disseminating claims that suggest that the company’s position on this matter is untrue.”
The case is ongoing.
Also in Poland, a court dismissed lawsuits brought against media outlet Wyborcza by Polish KGHM, one of the world’s biggest producers of copper and silver, over stories revealing that the company had paid huge sums of money for worthless masks from China.
In Turkey, a court granted a take-down request by pasta producer Oba Makarna over a report that 26 of its factory workers in the south-central city of Gaziantep had tested positive for COVID-19. According to the court ruling, while the report was true, it damaged the company’s commercial reputation.
In its report, the CoE warned that restrictions introduced during the pandemic could give rise to increased use of civil lawsuits, particularly defamation cases.
“While their use did not increase dramatically during the height of the pandemic, there is some concern that pandemic-related reporting will be subjected to SLAPP lawsuits and defamation cases in the future, it said.
Partners Serbia, a Belgrade-based NGO that works on initiatives to combat corruption and develop democracy and the rule of the law in the Balkan country, had been on Twitter for more than nine years when, in November 2020, the social media giant suspended its account.
Twitter gave no notice or explanation of the suspension, but Ana Toskic Cvetinovic, the executive director of Partners Serbia, had a hunch – that it was the result of a “coordinated attack”, probably other Twitter users submitting complaints about how the NGO was using its account.
“We tried for days to get at least some information from Twitter, like what could be the cause and how to solve the problem, but we haven’t received any answer,” Toskic Cvetinovic told BIRN. “After a month of silence, we saw that a new account was the only option.”
Twitter lifted the suspension in January, again without explanation. But Partners Serbia is far from alone among NGOs, media organisations and public figures in the Balkans who have had their social media accounts suspended without proper explanation or sometimes any explanation at all, according to BIRN monitoring of digital rights and freedom violations in the region.
Experts say the lack of transparency is a significant problem for those using social media as a vital channel of communication, not least because they are left in the dark as to what can be done to prevent such suspensions in the future.
But while organisations like Partners Serbia can face arbitrary suspension, half of the posts on Facebook and Twitter that are reported as hate speech, threatening violence or harassment in Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin or Macedonian remain online, according to the results of a BIRN survey, despite confirmation from the companies that the posts violated rules.
The investigation shows that the tools used by social media giants to protect their community guidelines are failing: posts and accounts that violate the rules often remain available even when breaches are acknowledged, while others that remain within those rules can be suspended without any clear reason.
Among BIRN’s findings are the following:
Almost half of reports in Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin or Macedonian language to Facebook and Twitter are about hate speech
One in two posts reported as hate speech, threatening violence or harassment in Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin or Macedonian language, remains online. When it comes to reports of threatening violence, the content was removed in 60 per cent of cases, and 50 per cent in cases of targeted harassment.
Facebook and Twitter are using a hybrid model, a combination of artificial intelligence and human assessment in reviewing such reports, but declined to reveal how many of them are actually reviewed by a person proficient in Bosnian, Serbian, Montenegrin or Macedonian
Both social networks adopt a “proactive approach”, which means they remove content or suspend accounts even without a report of suspicious conduct, but the criteria employed is unclear and transparency lacking.
The survey showed that people were more ready to report content targeting them or minority groups.
Experts say the biggest problem could be the lack of transparency in how social media companies assess complaints.
The assessment itself is done in the first instance by an algorithm and, if necessary, a human gets involved later. But BIRN’s research shows that things get messy when it comes to the languages of the Balkans, precisely because of the specificity of language and context.
Distinguishing harsh criticism from defamation or radical political opinions from expressions of hatred and racism or incitement to violence require contextual and nuanced analysis.
Half of the posts containing hate speech remain online
Graphic: BIRN/Igor Vujcic
Facebook and Twitter are among the most popular social networks in the Balkans. The scope of their popularity is demonstrated in a 2020 report by DataReportal, an online platform that analyses how the world uses the Internet.
In January, there were around 3.7 million social media users in Serbia, 1.1 million in North Macedonia, 390,000 in Montenegro and 1.7 million in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In each of the countries, Facebook is the most popular, with an estimated three million users in Serbia, 970,000 in North Macedonia, 300,000 in Montenegro and 1.4 million in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Such numbers make Balkan countries attractive for advertising but also for the spread of political messages, opening the door to violations.
The debate over the benefits and the dangers of social media for 21st century society is well known.
In terms of violent content, besides the use of Artificial Intelligence, or AI, social media giants are trying to give users the means to react as well, chiefly by reporting violations to network administrators.
There are three kinds of filters – manual filtering by humans; automated filtering by algorithmic tools and hybrid filtering, performed by a combination of humans and automated tools.
In cases of uncertainty, posts or accounts are submitted to human review before decisions are taken, or after in the event a user complaints about automated removal.
“Today, we primarily rely on AI for the detection of violating content on Facebook and Instagram, and in some cases to take action on the content automatically as well,” a Facebook spokesperson told BIRN. “We utilize content reviewers for reviewing and labelling specific content, particularly when technology is less effective at making sense of context, intent or motivation.”
Twitter told BIRN that it is increasing the use of machine learning and automation to enforce the rules.
“Today, by using technology, more than 50 per cent of abusive content that’s enforced on our service is surfaced proactively for human review instead of relying on reports from people using Twitter,” said a company spokesperson.
“We have strong and dedicated teams of specialists who provide 24/7 global coverage in multiple different languages, and we are building more capacity to address increasingly complex issues.”
In order to check how effective those mechanisms are when it comes to content in Balkan languages, BIRN conducted a survey focusing on Facebook and Twitter reports and divided into three categories: violent threats (direct or indirect), harassment and hateful conduct.
The survey asked for the language of the disputedcontent, who was the target and who was the author, and whether or not the report was successful.
Over 48 per cent of respondents reported hate speech, some 20 per cent reported targeted harassment and some 17 per cent reported threatening violence.
The survey showed that people were more ready to report content targeting them or minority groups.
According to the survey, 43 per cent of content reported as hate speech remained online, while 57 per cent was removed. When it comes to reports of threatening violence, content was removed in 60 per cent of cases.
Roughly half of reports of targeted harassment resulted in removal.
Chloe Berthelemy, a policy advisor at European Digital Rights, EDRi, which works to promote digital rights, says the real-life consequences of neglect can be disastrous.
“For example, in cases of image-based sexual abuse [often wrongly called “revenge porn”], the majority of victims are women and they suffer from social exclusion as a result of these attacks,” Berthelemy said in a written response to BIRN. “For example, they can be discriminated against on the job market because recruiters search their online reputation.”
Content removal – censorship or corrective?
Graphic: BIRN/Igor Vujcic.
According to the responses to BIRN’s questionnaire, some 57 per cent of those who reported hate speech said they were notified that the reported post/account violated the rules.
On the other hand, some 28 per cent said they had received notification that the content they reported did not violate the rules, while 14 per cent received only confirmation that their report was filed.
In terms of reports of targeted harassment, half of people said they received confirmation that the content violated the rules; 16 per cent were told the content did not violate rules. A third of those who reported targeted harassment only received confirmation their report was received.
As for threatening violence, 40 per cent of people received confirmation that the reported post/account violated the rules while 60 per cent received only confirmation their complaint had been received.
One of the respondents told BIRN they had reported at least seven accounts for spreading hatred and violent content.
“I do not engage actively on such reports nor do I keep looking and searching them. However, when I do come across one of these hateful, genocide deniers and genocide supporters, it feels the right thing to do, to stop such content from going further,” the respondent said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Maybe one of all the reported individuals stops and asks themselves what led to this and simply opens up discussions, with themselves or their circles.”
Although for those seven acounts Twitter confirmed they violate some of the rules, six of them are still available online.
Another issue that emerged is unclear criteria while reporting violations. Basic knowledge of English is also required.
Sanjana Hattotuwa, special advisor at ICT4Peace Foundation agreed that the in-app or web-based reporting process is confusing.
“Moreover, it is often in English even though the rest of the UI/UX [User Interface/User Experience] could be in the local language. Furthermore, the laborious selection of categories is, for a victim, not easy – especially under duress.”
Facebook told BIRN that the vast majority of reports are reviewed within 24 hours and that the company uses community reporting, human review and automation.
It refused, however, to give any specifics on those it employs to review content or reports in Balkan languages, saying “it isn’t accurate to only give the number of content reviewers”.
BIRN methodology
BIRN conducted its questionnaire via the network’s tool for engaging citizens in reporting, developed in cooperation with the British Council.
The anonymous questionnaire had the aim of collecting information on what type of violations people reported, who was the target and how successful the report was. The questions were available in English, Macedonian, Albanian and Bosnian/Serbian/Montenegrin. BIRN focused on Facebook and Twitter given their popularity in the Balkans and the sensitivity of shared content, which is mostly textual and harder to assess compared to videos and photos.
“That alone doesn’t reflect the number of people working on a content review for a particular country at any given time,” the spokesperson said.
Social networks often remove content themselves, in what they call a ‘proactive approach’.
According to data provided by Facebook, in the last quarter of 2017 their proactive detection rate was 23.6 per cent.
“This means that of the hate speech we removed, 23.6 per cent of it was found before a user reported it to us,” the spokesperson said. “The remaining majority of it was removed after a user reported it. Today we proactively detect about 95 per cent of hate speech content we remove.”
“Whether content is proactively detected or reported by users, we often use AI to take action on the straightforward cases and prioritise the more nuanced cases, where context needs to be considered, for our reviewers.”
There is no available data, however, when it comes to content in a specific language or country.
Facebook publishes a Community Standards Enforcement Report on a quarterly basis, but, according to the spokesperson, the company does not “disclose data regarding content moderation in specific countries.”
Whatever the tools, the results are sometimes highly questionable.
In May 2018, Facebook blocked for 24 hours the profile of Bosnian journalist Dragan Bursac after he posted a photo of a detention camp for Bosniaks in Serbia during the collapse of federal Yugoslavia in the 1990s.
Facebook determined that Bursac’s post had violated “community standards,” local media reported.
Bojan Kordalov, Skopje-based public relations and new media specialist, said that, “when evaluating efficiency in this area, it is important to emphasise that the traffic in the Internet space is very dense and is increasing every second, which unequivocally makes it a field where everyone needs to contribute”.
“This means that social media managements are undeniably responsible for meeting the standards and compliance with regulations within their platforms, but this does not absolve legislators, governments and institutions of responsibility in adapting to the needs of the new digital age, nor does it give anyone the right to redefine and narrow down the notion and the benefits that democracy brings.”
Lack of language sensibility
Illustration. Photo: Unsplash/The Average Tech Guy
SHARE Foundation, a Belgrade-based NGO working on digital rights, said the question was crucial given the huge volume of content flowing through the likes of Facebook and Twitter in all languages.
“When it comes to relatively small language groups in absolute numbers of users, such as languages in the former Yugoslavia or even in the Balkans, there is simply no incentive or sufficient pressure from the public and political leaders to invest in human moderation,” SHARE told BIRN.
Berthelemy of EDRi said the Balkans were not a stand alone example, and that the content moderation practices and policies of Facebook and Twitter are “doomed to fail.”
“Many of these corporations operate on a massive scale, some of them serving up to a quarter of the world’s population with a single service,” Berthelemy told BIRN. “It is impossible for such monolithic architecture, and speech regulation process and policy to accommodate and satisfy the specific cultural and social needs of individuals and groups.”
The European Parliament has also stressed the importance of a combined assessment.
“The expressions of hatred can be conveyed in many ways, and the same words typically used to convey such expressions can also be used for different purposes,” according to a 2020 study – ‘The impact of algorithms for online content filtering or moderation’ – commissioned by the Parliament’s Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs.
“For instance, such words can be used for condemning violence, injustice or discrimination against the targeted groups, or just for describing their social circumstances. Thus, to identify hateful content in textual messages, an attempt must be made at grasping the meaning of such messages, using the resources provided by natural language processing.”
Hattotuwa said that, in general, “non-English language markets with non-Romanic (i.e. not English letter based) scripts are that much harder to design AI/ML solutions around”.
“And in many cases, these markets are out of sight and out of mind, unless the violence, abuse or platform harms are so significant they hit the New York Times front-page,” Hattotuwa told BIRN.
“Humans are necessary for evaluations, but as you know, there are serious emotional / PTSD issues related to the oversight of violent content, that companies like Facebook have been sued for (and lost, having to pay damages).”
Failing in non-English
Illustration. Photo: Unsplash/Ann Ann
Dragan Vujanovic of the Sarajevo-based NGO Vasa prava [Your Rights] criticised what he said was a “certain level of tolerance with regards to violations which support certain social narratives.”
“This is particularly evident in the inconsistent behavior of social media moderators where accounts with fairly innocuous comments are banned or suspended while other accounts, with overt abuse and clear negative social impact, are tolerated.”
For Chloe Berthelemy, trying to apply a uniform set of rules on the very diverse range of norms, values and opinions on all available topics that exist in the world is “meant to fail.”
“For instance, where nudity is considered to be sensitive in the United States, other cultures take a more liberal approach,” she said.
The example of Myanmar, when Facebook effectively blocked an entire language by refusing all messages written in Jinghpaw, a language spoken by Myanmar’s ethnic Kachin and written with a Roman alphabet, shows the scale of the issue.
“The platform performs very poorly at detecting hate speech in non-English languages,” Berthelemy told BIRN.
The techniques used to filter content differ depending on the media analysed, according to the 2020 study for the European Parliament.
“A filter can work at different levels of complexity, spanning from simply comparing contents against a blacklist, to more sophisticated techniques employing complex AI techniques,” it said.
“In machine learning approaches, the system, rather than being provided with a logical definition of the criteria to be used to find and classify content (e.g., to determine what counts as hate speech, defamation, etc.) is provided with a vast set of data, from which it must learn on its own the criteria for making such a classification.”
Users of both Twitter and Facebook can appeal in the event their accounts are suspended or blocked.
“Unfortunately, the process lacks transparency, as the number of filed appeals is not mentioned in the transparency report, nor is the number of processed or reinstated accounts or tweets,” the study noted.
Between January and October 2020, Facebook restored some 50,000 items of content without an appeal and 613,000 after appeal.
Machine learning
As cited in the 2020 study commissioned by the European Parliament, Facebook has developed a machine learning approach called Whole Post Integrity Embeddings, WPIE, to deal with content violating Facebook guidelines.
The system addresses multimedia content by providing a holistic analysis of a post’s visual and textual content and related comments, across all dimensions of inappropriateness (violence, hate, nudity, drugs, etc.). The company claims that automated tools have improved the implementation of Facebook content guidelines. For instance, about 4.4 million items of drug sale content were removed in just the third quarter of 2019, 97.6 per cent of which were detected proactively.
When it comes to the ways in which social networks deal with suspicious content, Hattotuwa said that “context is key”.
While acknowledging advancements in the past two to three years, Hattotuwa said that, “No AI and ML [Machine Learning] I am aware of even in English language contexts can accurately identify the meaning behind an image.”
“With regards to content inciting hate, hurt and harm,” he said, “it is even more of a challenge.”
According to the Twitter Transparency report, in the first six months of 2020, 12.4 million accounts were reported to the company, just over six million of which were reported for hateful conduct and some 5.1 million for “abuse/harassment”.
In the same period, Twitter suspended 925,744 accounts, of which 127,954 were flagged for hateful conduct and 72,139 for abuse/harassment. The company removed such content in a little over 1.9 million cases: 955,212 in the hateful conduct category and 609,253 in the abuse/harassment category.
Toskic Cvetinovic said the rules needed to be clearer and better communicated to users by “living people.”
“Often, the content removal doesn’t have a corrective function, but amounts to censorship,” she said.
Berthelemy said that, “because the dominant social media platforms reproduce the social systems of oppression, they are also often unsafe for many groups at the margins.”
“They are unable to understand the discriminatory and violent online behaviours, including certain forms of harassment and violent threats and therefore, cannot address the needs of victims,” Berthelemy told BIRN.
“Furthermore,” she said, “those social media networks are also advertisement companies. They rely on inflammatory content to generate profiling data and thus advertisement profits. There will be no effective, systematic response without addressing the business models of accumulating and trading personal data.”
Social media giant Twitter’s transparency report for the first six months of 2020 said Turkey continued to lead the world in terms of Twitter censorship in many categories, including the highest number of third-party takedown requests, court orders and accounts and tweets withheld.
Turkey had the highest number of combined requests including court orders and other legal demands, with 45,776 requests. It was followed by Japan and Russia, which made 45,776 and 30,436 requests respectively.
Turkey also at the top of the list when it comes to the number of court orders it sent to Twitter. It sent 6,513 such requests in the first half of 2020. Russia followed far behind with 2,972.
In other legal demands categories, meaning non-court order requests, Turkey again topped the list with 39,263 requests made in the first half of 2020, followed by Japan, which made 38,814 requests, followed in third place by Russia, which submitted 27,464 such requests.
Turkey also sent 347 information requests to Twitter, which did not comply any of them.
Turkey remains in number one place for the total number of accounts specified for closure/action under court orders and other legal demands. It specified 99,840 accounts for closure or other actions, followed by Indonesia, which sought action on 74,660 accounts. Japan came third, with 47,472 accounts.
In terms of accounts withheld by Twitter, Turkey again had the highest number globally with 2,501 withheld accounts, followed by Russia with 340 and India with 238.
In terms of tweets withheld by Twitter, Turkey was also number one globally, responsible for 12,135 of the total of 28,542 tweets withheld in that period. Some 42 per cent of all tweets withheld globally were from Turkey.
According to the Twitter report, 58 accounts of verified journalists and news outlets from around the world were subject to 333 legal demands in the period in consideration. Most of these legal demands originated either from India, 149, or from Turkey, 142 – together making them responsible for 291 of the 333 legal demands.
While Turkey leads in terms of Twitter censorship, and made the highest number of requests in several categories, it now aims to expand its control over social media companies with a new digital law.
Experts fear that if it does appoint an official representative to Turkey, as demanded, Twitter will have to respond more often to official demands.
“The removal of content rate [based on Turkey’s requests] was [only] 0.33 per cent for the first six months of 2020. Turkey wants Twitter to come to the country [in terms of a representative] for this reason,” Yaman Akdeniz, a Turkish digital rights activist wrote on Twitter on Wednesday.
“Coming to Turkey will result with Twitter becoming complicit in rights violations and would be against the current approach and policy adopted by Twitter regarding demands from Turkey,” Akdeniz added.
So far, only YouTube and Russia’s VK social media platform have appointed legal representatives to Turkey. Facebook, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, has said it will not appoint a representative while Twitter is still undecided on the matter.
Turkey on Wednesday imposed ten million Turkish lira (one million euro) fines on digital media giants including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Periscope and TikTok because they did not appoint official representatives in the country as required by a new digital media law adopted in July this year.
If appointed, the company’s representatives would have to remove any piece of content that the Turkish authorities consider illegal within 48 hours of an official request.
“As the deadline for social media companies… for informing the government about their representatives is over, ten million lira fines are imposed,” Deputy Transport Minister Omer Fatih Sayan said on Twitter.
Sayan called on the companies to appoint their representatives in Turkey immediately.
“Otherwise, other steps will be taken,” he warned.
According to the new digital media law, the online media giants now have 30 days to appoint their representatives. If they do not, 30 million lira (three million euro) fines will be imposed.
If they still do not comply within three months, they will face an advertisement ban for three months.
As final sanctions, their bandwidth will be halved and then cut by 90 per cent.
The government is also asking the online media giants to transfer their servers to Turkey.
So far, none of the major companies have complied.
Opposition parties and human rights groups see the new law as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s attempt to control media platforms and silence his critics.
The new regulations might result in these companies quitting the Turkish market, experts have warned.
PayPal quit the Turkish market in 2016 because of similar requests and Wikipedia was blocked in Turkey for more than two-and-a-half years.
Turkey has submitted the highest number of requests to Twitter to delete content and close accounts, the company has said.
According to Twitter, Turkey asked it to close nearly 9,000 accounts, but it only shut down 264 of them.
Largely because the COVID-19 outbreak reduced classical campaigning and election rallies, the main political blocs at the July 15 early general elections invested serious attention in social media and in Twitter campaigns.
But what happened within the social network bubbles did not always reflects accurately real life, or the election results.
Despite being twice as active on Twitter, the ruling alliance led by the Social Democrats under Zoran Zaev, pulled off only a wafer-thin victory at the polls, winning 46 of the 120 seats in parliament, just two more than their right-wing rivals in VMRO DPMNE.
BIRN’s comparative analysis on the tweets of the party candidates and the use of their punchline hashtags, done with the help of SHARE foundation, reveals several characteristics.
When it came to their official hashtags, such as “We Can” and “We Care”, used by the Social Democrats, and “Choose Renewal” and “Rise Up Macedonia”, used by VMRO DPMNE, the former were clearly dominant, for example. Ruling alliance hashtags could be seen on more than 5,600 tweets. Those of the opposition were found in just over 2,100.
Yet their strategies were very similar, with party leaders and the electoral lists’ heads in the six electoral districts posting the initial electoral propaganda, and sympathizers disseminating it.
Only some party sympathizers used their personal profiles with their names clearly displayed. Most posts were retweeted by profiles using pseudonyms or just codenames. Thus, one assumption is that these were automatized profiles, or bots.
One difference between them was that the posting of tweets was more evenly spread in the ruling party bloc.
While Social Democratic leader Zaev led the process, much of the party’s communication also originated from other prominent figures, such as Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov, Vice Prime Minister Mila Carovska, Defence Minister Radmila Shekerinska, provisional PM Oliver Spasovski and others – most of them leading the lists of candidates in the six electoral districts.
In the opposition bloc, most of the traffic originated from the profile of the VMRO DPMNE leader, Hristijan Mickoski, or from the official party twitter profile. Compared to these two, the activity of the other opposition party officials was negligible.
Illustration depicting the twitter interactions between the two political blocs: BIRN
While most Twitter posts on Zaev’s profile referred to the alliance’s own campaign points and promises, some 10 per cent were reserved for negative campaigning against the opposition.
Among these negative posts, most suggested that if VMRO DPMNE came back to power, it would mean a “return of the regime” – referencing the authoritarian government of former VMRO DPMNE leader and former prime minister Nikola Gruevski.
Most of the tweets from the profile of opposition leader Mickoski also focused on election promises and on parts of the party’s manifesto. But about 13 per cent of tweets were devoted to attacking the other side.
The most common tweets attacking the Social Democrats referred to alleged “crimes” committed by Zaev, mostly drawing on connections to the high-profile “Extortion” trial in which the former head of the Special Prosecution, SJO, Katica Janeva – once strongly supported by Zaev – and others were found guilty of extortion.
Other posts accused Zaev of undermining the national interest by presiding over important friendship deals with neighbouring Bulgaria and the historic “name” agreement with Greece.
The analysis shows that nine of the ten most shared posts during the campaign were those of Social Democratic officials, with Zaev’ post sharing the official video commercial of their campaign, in which the party says it has achieved a lot and can do even more, being most shared.
The opposition leader posted the tenth most shared post as well. In it, he shared a video advertisement in which he implored young people to stay in the country and to “fight for Macedonia”.
Analyzing overall Twitter communications during the election campaign, Zaev’s name was mentioned most often. His profile was mentioned in 3,100 posts, while that of the opposition leader Mickoski was mentioned in 1,580.
Despite the bitter electoral war waged on Twitter by both blocs and their supporters, neither bloc got exactly what it sought.
Zaev did not win a comfortable majority for a new government to accomplish his promised changes.
Mickoski also failed to persuade enough voters that it was time he took over and started to “strengthen the spines” of the country’s supposedly humiliated citizens.
Twitter said it had removed 7,340 “fake and compromised” accounts on Friday, which were linked to the youth branch of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, AKP.
“The collection of fake and compromised accounts was being used to amplify political narratives favourable to the AKP, and demonstrated strong support for President Erdogan. We’re disclosing 7,340 accounts to the archive today,” Twitter wrote.
On Friday Twitter disclosed more than 32,000 accounts in all, mostly from China – 23,750 accounts, Turkey and Russia because they were suspected of being “state-linked information operations”.
We’re disclosing new state-linked information operations to our public archive — the only one of its kind in the industry. Originating from the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Russia, and Turkey, all associated accounts and content have been removed. https://t.co/obRqr96iYm
Twitter said it had worked with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute ASPI and Stanford Internet Observatory SIO and had shared relevant data with them.
“Collaborative research provides us with a way to learn from past operations and mitigate future malign efforts,” SIO wrote on Twitter’s latest decision.
According to media reports, Erdogan ruling party and its youth branch run tens of thousands of essentially fake accounts, promoting the President. These accounts are often nicknamed the “Ak Trolls”.
Twitter also said that the accounts had hacked other accounts that were more critical of President Erdogan. They were also used for commercial activities, such as cryptocurrency-related spam.
Twitter’s policy on manipulation and spam prohibits “coordinated activity that attempts to artificially influence conversations through the use of multiple accounts, fake accounts, automation and/or scripting”.
Twitter previously deleted thousands of accounts from Egypt, Honduras, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Serbia for similar reasons.
Serbia was by far the top country in terms of the number of removed accounts. Twitter axed almost 9,000 accounts in April that were promoting Serbia’s ruling Progressive Party and its leader, President Aleksandar Vucic, so violating company policy on manipulation and spam.
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