16 minutes agoRightists in Serbia with Facebook campaign against European plan
Periskopi(3 years ago)
(3 years ago)Since the beginning of the year, rightist parties and politicians in Serbia have invested at least 7,000 euros in Facebook ads against the European plan for normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia. A Radio Free Europe analysis showed that a total of 48 ads against this plan have been paid. Free advertising against plan [...]
A Radio Free Europe analysis showed that a total of 48 ads against this plan have been paid.
Pay advertising against the European plan appeared between 8.1 million and 9.4 million times on Facebook and Instagram, mainly for the male audience.
The ads were published on Facebook pages of the rightist movement Dveri, leader of this move Bosko Obradovic, leader of the New Democratic Party of Serbia (Novi DSS), Milos Jovanovic, Movement for Relocation of the Kingdom of Serbia (POKS), as well as POKS Bechi, which is a branch of POKS.
Dvery, POKS and Novi DSS are three of the four parliamentary parties that organised protests in March, calling for the rejection of the Agreement to normalise relations with Kosovo.
Pay advertising on social networks occurs at the moment the agreement is being accepted on the road to normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia, which the right-wing parties rejected on both social and street networks.
The deal was first accepted by Serbia's president, Aleksandar Vuciq, and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti, in late February in Brussels, and for Anex for implementation of the Agreement on March 18th in Ohrid.
The exact amount is unknown, since Meta, the social networking company Facebook and Instagram, only shows the rank in which the amount is spent.
Bojan Perkov, a researcher at Belgrade's non-governmental foundation, SHARA, which deals with monitoring the digital rights of citizens in Serbia, tells Radio Free Europe that, given that these are letters of attempt, the question may be how transparent are actually the payments of advertising made on Facebook.
However, it stresses that anyone who wants to pay political advertising through Meta platforms should register in that system and submit to some kind of verification.
The name of the concrete politician or the name of the political party sponsoring advertising, which somehow confirms that the ad has gone into the system and has been verified, i.e. is approved by Meta and his system”, Perkov explains.
The Meta company tells Radio Free Europe that advertising of rightist parties that deny Kosovo's existence as a state does not violate their instructions.
