Twitter restores political accounts in Serbia

Twitter company says it has wrongly ruled the accounts of some politicians in Serbia.

In this case, we mistook measures to suspend a number of accounts and now they have returned. Our main priority is to protect healthy discussions on Twitter”, the company said in a written response to Radio Free Europe.

On August 18th, the Twitter company has suspended accounts of several Serbian Progressive Party deputies and politicians, who are in power in Serbia, and of a government official.

Twitter said it continues to implement security policies for accounts on this social network.

Among the people whose account was suspended on the social Twitter network is Arno Gujon, director of the Directorate for Co-operation with the diaspora and Serbs in the region, who has been appointed to this position in 2020 by the Government of Serbia.

“Twitter just suspended my account where I had 34,000 followers, without giving an explanation of”, Gujon said through a Facebook post.

Even though Gujon is known to the public in Serbia as a humanitarian helping Serbs in Kosovo, his political activity is linked to the identity movement of the extreme right.

Twitter suspended on August 18th, accounts of 12 members of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) of current President Aleksandar Vuciq.

Among the accounts suspended was the account of the nongovernmental CRTA organisation monitoring the work of the Parliament. Among those who were suspended on Twitter are: Nevena Djurovic, Sandra Bozic, Milica Nikolic, Jelena Obradovic, Aleksandar Markovik, Krsta Janjusevicq, Dusan Radojevic, Jelena Z Mirjet-Kovacevic, Alexandra Tomic, Stasa Stojanovic, Zoran Tomovic and Andrijana Vasic.

The Twitter company also suspended the accounts of several senior SNS members, including the mayor of Belgrade, Miroslav Cuckovic, as well as Slavisa Micanovich, who according to the media, leads the SNS media team.

As reported on the official page, Twitter has the right to suspend accounts if these accounts violate company regulations.

The majority of the accounts that we suspend, are suspended because they are false or they pose security risks for Twitter or for those which Twitter uses”, the site says.

The Twitter website also says that accounts can be suspended if the same are suspected of being hacked. The suspension of such cases lasts until the account returns to the owner.

The company can also suspend accounts if they are at odds with company policies.