ANEM ALERT: Threats to the media that their social media accounts will be shut down if they publish negative coverage about the president.
An email threat was sent to the editorial offices of Danas, N1, Nova.rs, KTV from Zrenjanin, and several other media outlets from influenseri@proton.me, stating that their social media accounts would be shut down if they continued to write negatively about the president. Veran Matić, the president of the Management Board of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), a member of the Permanent Working Group for the Safety of Journalists, and an operator on the Safe Line for Media Workers 0800 100 115, reported the case to the Prosecutor's Office for High-Tech Crime.
The threat reached the media along with a series of insults and vulgar messages, including the message: “Once again, write something NEGATIVE about our president and forget about social media.”
“The threat to shut down social media accounts, or the attack on the accounts of the mentioned media, including the individuals named, poses a serious threat to the safety of these media outlets. I remind you that the editorial office of the daily newspaper Danas received a threat several years ago via ProtonMail, and that case has never been resolved,” states Veran Matić.
This case can be classified under Article 299 of the Criminal Code concerning "computer sabotage," which states that “anyone who enters, destroys, erases, alters, damages, conceals, or otherwise renders a computer data or program unusable, or destroys or damages a computer or another electronic device for processing and transmitting data with the intent to disable or significantly disrupt the process of electronic data processing and transmission that is significant for state authorities, public services, institutions, enterprises, or other entities, shall be punished by imprisonment for a term of six months to five years.”
ANEM reminds that the media outlets Zoomer, Radar.rs, Nova.rs, Nova S, and N1 recently announced that their accounts on the social media platform Instagram gained tens of thousands of new followers in a very short period using fake profiles and that they suspect the aim is for the company Meta to classify this as prohibited activity and block or shut down those accounts, as has already happened in some cases. This type of bot attack on the media has been reported this week to the High-Tech Crime Prosecutor's Office.
Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM)
The project "System for the Prevention of Violence and Protection of Journalists" is being implemented by ANEM with partners Insider TV and the Center for the Development of Local Media, with the support of the European Union.
The OSCE Mission to Serbia has supported ANEM's project "24/7 SOS Helpline 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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