Media unions demand investigation into mysterious suspension of a number of media outlet profiles known for criticising the government, calling it a form of censorship.
The Association of Independent Electronic Media, ANEM, has urged the Serbian prosecution to investigate the suspension of the social media profiles of a number of government-critical Serbian media outlets in recent days.
On Tuesday, the ANEM said that some media outlets had received an email sent from the ProtonMail account, saying that the senders are claiming responsibility for “turning off social media profiles”. The alleged senders linked their action to their hostile reporting about Serbia’s president, Aleksandar Vucic.
“Just keep insulting our president, Aleksandar Vucic, and your social networks will be shut down every time, because you are spreading misinformation,” the email said, according to the ANEM press release.
Neither the president nor any Serbian government official has yet commented on the matter. The president’s press office did not respond to BIRN’s inquiries for comment by the time of publication.
Among those whose accounts were suspended were the daily news portal Nova, the weekly magazine Radar, the NGO organisations CRTA and Osnazene, and the profile of photographer Gavrilo Andric, who is known for posting photos from almost all the student-led protests held over the last year and more. All these organisations and media outlets have been critical of the Serbian government, which is why the new move has been condemned as a form of censorship.
A few days earlier, emails from a similar address were sent to the same newsrooms, announcing that their Instagram profiles would be shut down.
The attack started with these accounts receiving tens of thousands of new followers, mostly fake profiles, in a short period of time, triggering Meta to react to this as a prohibited activity and block or shut down the accounts.
Veran Matic, President of the Managing Board of the ANEM and a member of the Standing Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, has reported this information to the High-Tech Crime Prosecutor’s Office.
“This attack was announced in advance, and it is necessary to determine whether the person who sent the warning and then the subsequent message claiming that the threat had been carried out actually did so, or whether it was organised by someone else,” Matic was quoted as saying in the press release.
He added that beside media outlets and their profiles on social networks, the shutdowns also hit “student-run accounts that enjoy public trust”.
“There are also youth and student media whose natural environment is social networks, which the authorities are trying to find ways to block,” Matic said.
All the social media profiles were later restored and are now operating normally.
Meta told BIRN that they restored the accounts that had been wrongly disabled, and that they are working to identify measures to prevent similar situations in the future.
NOTE: This story was amended to include response from Meta.
Source: BalkanInsight
