On June 20, CIVIL started its monitoring of the pre-election activities of the political parties participating in the election process, on hate speech on the social media, fake news and disinformation.
CIVIL’s Monitoring Team from the start of the election campaign detected on the social networks and archived over hundreds of contents with hate speech and numerous contents with fake news and disinformation.
From the start of the election silence, on July 13 at midnight, combined contents containing disinformation and disobeying of the elections silence by politicians and political parties were noted.
Hate speech on the social media during the election silence not only did not decrease, but rather intensified, and by the regular websites that from the start of the election campaign were working intensively on producing posts, and thus encouraging hate speech.
CIVIL published several contents from the many that were archived by the Monitoring Team, and as a result caused the closure of the page “Nalet na se storite”, which came back with even more intensified hate speech, touching on the organization and its members with explicit statements and discriminatory labelling on several grounds.
On the second day of election silence, an already familiar profile on the social network Twitter, which deals intensively with the ethnic background of the organization’s members, posted a tweet with slander and insult towards CIVIL’s members, with an announcement that it would further continue to do so.
Hate speech was not lacking neither in the posts of the dismissed, and now already detained, judge Vladimir Pancevski, in which there was organized persecution against CIVIL and members of the organization.
In the pre-election period, CIVIL’s office was again a target of vandalism with threatening and insulting messages. The panel in the yard behind the office of the organization that is used for meetings and public statements was pushed down, and a shovel placed over it. The sign with the logo of the organization and the inscription “Free zone” right underneath it was torn down, and litter was thrown in front of the door. On the door, the word “Nazi” was engraved with a sharp object.
Human rights activists and politicians were also a target of hate speech.
CIVIL’s monitoring singles out 9 most common Facebook pages that spread hate speech and disinformation, as well as several associations that have taken part in these posts with shares, likes and comments.
CIVIL held a press conference on July 11, where it presented the election monitoring report, with extensive details from the work of the Monitoring Team of the organization and including monitoring of several aspects of the pre-election period, such as hate speech, fake news and disinformation, financing of political parties in the pre-election campaign, with findings and analyses for them.
The hate speech continued even on election day and after that.
Dimitar Apasiev from Levica, after it became certain that he as a list holder in Constituency 1 was entering the new parliamentary composition, had a post on his Facebook profile with explicit hate speech, after which the Skopje Public Prosecutor’s Office opened a case.
The selected contents with hate speech are published regularly on CIVIL’s media platform, in Macedonian and Albanian.
Fake news and disinformation
In terms of fake news and disinformation during the election silence, during the elections and after, CIVIL’s monitoring continues to work in this area. Out of the numerous contents that CIVIL’s Monitoring Team detected, several have been published on the media platform.
Parties and activists published results from the voting of citizens in isolation with Covid-19, and from the voting of the sick, chronically ill, prisoners, persons in nursing homes and under house arrest, by showing votes for their parties and for other parties.
These activities violate the election silence and misinform the public.
The Electoral Code, in the part on Publishing the results of the elections, in Article 135 paragraph 1 and 2, explains that the publication of the election results, as well as the results, at a given time and in a legally determined manner, is performed by the State Election Commission.
The question remains as to how they came to the final results that determine how many citizens in isolation voted for a certain political entity, if at the same time we take into consideration that the voting is secret. This also violates the secrecy of voting.
Dismissed judge Vladimir Pancevski in the pre-election period shared contents with hate speech and placed fake news on the social network Twitter and Facebook in favour of VMRO-DPMNE. Pancevski was dismissed from the position President of Basic Court Skopje 1 in December 2019 due to manipulations with the distribution of cases in the court.
CIVIL’s Monitoring Team noted that on his Twitter account, in addition to disinformation and hate speech that he posts, that he often shares and posts profiles – party bots of the opposition party of VMRO-DPMNE.
Several Internet portals published fake news that in Veles money had been given as vote-buying in the form of social assistance for citizens in the amount of 2000 denars, for which the Veles Sector of Interior denied the published information.
The Internet portal “Portlab” published an analysis on the preliminary results of the possible outcome of the voting, for part of the political parties competing for MPs in the early parliamentary elections that were to be held on July 15. The analysis was prepared by political analyst Robert Nesimi.
The portals, close to a certain political party, published the analysis, but showed results on the number of mandates received, in favour of the party that controls them, namely, different from the ones shown in the analysis.
Several media outlets published news that a politician, who was part of the candidate lists, had tested positive for Covid – 19, and that the same information had been confirmed by the party supporting him.
The politician denied the fake news that he had tested positive for Covid-19 on his Facebook profile.
Fake news was also posted that the measure detention had been determined for the Mayor of Vasilevo, but after checking we determined that it was absolutely not true. In the texts it is stated that the measure detention had been determined by a public prosecutor, even though it is generally known that a detention measure cannot be determined by a public prosecutor.
The Almakos portal published that DUI is begging SDSM to form the new government together. In the text published by Almakos, details are stated from alleged communications with sources from the two parties, of which alleged communication a conclusion can be drawn that the political party DUI is withdrawing from the initial demand for an Albanian prime minister, in exchange for three other top positions.
CIVIL sources report that currently there is no communication between the two parties, hence we classify this news as disinformation.
In addition to the stated contents in this report, on CIVIL’s media platform many other cases of hate speech, fake news and disinformation are published.
The findings of CIVIL’s Monitoring Team on fake news and disinformation, hate speech and violation to the election silence, are archived with all the necessary information, videos, photos and other details, for which CIVIL is preparing a detailed report.
CIVIL Monitoring Report
This post is also available in: Macedonian
