Three accounts on social network Instagram, which they own editorial staff Nova, were temporarily suspended today, while the account of the Radar portal on the same network was terminated.
Today, the Instagram accounts nova.rs_portal, nova.rs_showbiz and nova.rs_sport, as well as the private account of the page administrator, received a notice today that the account has been suspended for 180 days due to violation of community rules, as well as that it is necessary to take certain actions immediately in order not to lose the account permanently, writes N1.
The editorial staff of Nova.rs immediately filed a complaint with Instagram.
However, the Radar portal's Instagram account has been permanently shut down, and the administrator's private account linked to that profile has been suspended. The Radar editorial team contacted support Meta companies.
Nova accounts were already under attack at the beginning of January.
As the newsroom announced at the time, the Instagram account was exposed to a bot attack through fake profiles, which is reflected in the sudden and unusual increase in the number of followers in a very short period of time.
In just a few hours, the number of followers on Nova's official Instagram account jumped from 204.000 to more than 244.000, which is a clear indicator of artificial and unnatural growth, and in a few days it dropped by almost 30.000.
Artificial and uncontrolled growth and decline in the number of followers is a serious security risk for any social media account. Such activities may result in the platform marking the account as suspicious, limiting its visibility or, in the last case, shutting it down permanently, regardless of the fact that the account itself did not initiate or encourage such growth.
NDNV: Coordinated Attempts at Digital Sabotage
In the past period, several media channels - Radar, Zoomer, Nova, Nova S, N1, as well as accounts that serve citizens for timely and truthful information - were exposed to massive bot attacks and unexplained suspensions on the Instagram platform.
The Independent Association of Journalists of Vojvodina points out that these are not isolated technological incidents, but coordinated attempts at digital sabotage targeting independent media that critically report on the state of society and events of public interest.
In a statement, NDNV demands an urgent investigation by the relevant authorities into the circumstances of the bot attacks and the suspension of media accounts, the transparent operation of Meta and other digital platforms, with clear explanations of the reasons for the suspension and the steps that will be taken to protect professional media accounts, as well as the effective protection of media workers and independent media from digital sabotage and manipulation.
NDNV asks institutions and judicial authorities to show their readiness to deal with such forms of pressure on media freedom, especially when it is evident that they are coordinated attacks on independent channels of information.
CRTA, OsnaZene, PUF are also under attack...
During today's day, several more Instagram profiles came under fire.
One of them is an account. THE LINE, which announced on this occasion on the X network (formerly Twitter).
Also, Osnažene's Instagram accounts were suspended, as was Gavrilo Andrić's profile.
Iz Belgrade Trade Union they announced that their Instagram and Facebook accounts are currently deleted.
"This is total madness that this regime is doing, this is total repression, we will of course fight to get our profiles back, and they will not stop us from saying what we think we should," they stated.
