ANEM ALARM: Bot attacks on media Instagram accounts reported to the prosecutor's office.
Veran Matić, the president of the Board of Directors of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), a member of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, and the operator of the Safe Line for reporting threats and attacks on journalists at 0800 100 115, has reported bot attacks on the Instagram accounts of the media outlets Zoomer, Radar, Nova.rs, Nova S, and N1 to the Prosecutor's Office for High-Tech Crime.
These media outlets reported that their accounts on the social network Instagram gained tens of thousands of new followers in a very short period by using fake profiles, and they suspect that the goal is for the company Meta to assess this as prohibited activity and block or shut down those accounts, as has already happened in some cases.
It is clearly a case of coordinated digital attacks against independent media, reminiscent of DOS or DDoS attacks, which can be classified under Article 299 of the Criminal Code, "Computer Sabotage."
The editorial teams of Radar, Zoomer, and Nova.rs have informed Meta about this attack.
“We expect that such attacks will continue and escalate, and therefore we demand that the relevant authorities respond to prevent the shutdown of communication channels for professional media that are already exposed to targeting, defamation, threats, and attacks,” stated Veran Matić.
Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM)
The project "System for the Prevention of Violence and Protection of Journalists" is being implemented by ANEM in partnership with Insider TV and the Center for the Development of Local Media, with support from the European Union.
The OSCE Mission to Serbia has supported ANEM's project "24/7 SOS Hotline for Assistance to Journalists and Other Vulnerable Media Workers," as part of the EU-funded project "Strengthening Freedom of Expression and Media Freedom in Serbia."
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