{"id":13988,"date":"2026-10-07T13:55:51","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T11:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/?p=13988"},"modified":"2026-10-07T13:59:26","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T11:59:26","slug":"joint-regional-call-to-online-platforms-strengthen-safeguards-and-engagement-in-the-western-balkans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/joint-regional-call-to-online-platforms-strengthen-safeguards-and-engagement-in-the-western-balkans\/","title":{"rendered":"Joint Regional Call to Online Platforms: Strengthen Safeguards and Engagement in the Western Balkans"},"content":{"rendered":"

CA \u201cZa\u0161to ne\u201d, together with around 30 civil society organisations, media and journalist associations, fact-checkers and other public-interest actors from across the Western Balkans are calling on online platforms to strengthen safeguards and establish more structured cooperation with civic actors in the region.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Photo by: Za\u0161to ne<\/em><\/p>\n

The joint regional call focuses on three priority challenges affecting the digital information environment across the Western Balkans: access to audiences for independent media and civic actors; online safety and participation of public-interest actors; and democratic discourse and information integrity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Independent media, journalists, human rights defenders, fact-checkers and civil society organisations across the region continue to face challenges related to content moderation and access to audiences, coordinated abuse of platform systems, online harassment and intimidation, as well as coordinated information manipulation and artificial amplification. Weak enforcement of platform monetisation policies also continues to allow repeat disinformation actors to generate revenue from harmful content.<\/span><\/p>\n

The signatories call on online platforms to establish dedicated communication and escalation channels, including helplines, with trusted public-interest actors across the Western Balkans; extend procedural safeguards for decisions affecting media content to the region, reflecting the principles of the Digital Services Act (DSA) and European Media Freedom Act (EMFA); and promptly investigate credible evidence of coordinated manipulation, abuse of platform systems and repeated monetisation of disinformation.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Western Balkan countries move towards alignment with the EU digital regulatory framework, stronger engagement between platforms and regional stakeholders is needed now. Many of the risks addressed by the DSA and EMFA already affect citizens, media and civil society in the region. Building cooperation at this stage can help address these challenges while also developing the partnerships, expertise and operational readiness needed for future implementation of the European digital framework.<\/span><\/p>\n

Civil society organisations, media, fact-checkers and researchers across the Western Balkans have extensive expertise in documenting platform-related harms, monitoring information manipulation and supporting users affected by platform decisions. The signatories therefore call for this expertise to be systematically integrated into platforms\u2019 regional risk assessment, policy implementation and operational response.<\/span><\/p>\n

Read the full Joint Regional Call and see the list of signatories <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Joint Regional Call was initiated and coordinated by CA \u201cZa\u0161to ne\u201d within the framework of the <\/span><\/i>IGNITA<\/span><\/i><\/a> initiative with support from OSF-Western Balkans.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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CA \u201cZa\u0161to ne\u201d, together with around 30 civil society organisations, media and journalist associations, fact-checkers and other public-interest actors from across the Western Balkans are calling on online platforms to strengthen safeguards and establish more structured cooperation with civic actors in the region. Photo by: Za\u0161to ne The joint regional call focuses on three priority … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":13984,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,22],"tags":[88,110],"class_list":["post-13988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-zasto-ne-en","tag-ignita","tag-regional-call"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13988"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13989,"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13988\/revisions\/13989"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}