{"id":6724,"date":"2020-03-22T14:37:16","date_gmt":"2020-03-22T14:37:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/?p=6724"},"modified":"2020-03-22T14:38:13","modified_gmt":"2020-03-22T14:38:13","slug":"open-source-analysis-foreign-instigators-and-local-amplifiers-disinformation-in-bosnia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/open-source-analysis-foreign-instigators-and-local-amplifiers-disinformation-in-bosnia\/","title":{"rendered":"Open-source analysis: Foreign instigators and local amplifiers – Disinformation in Bosnia"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Balkans have made progress in tackling disinformation, but bad actors have grown more sophisticated.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Milorad Dodik, President of Republika Srpska, celebrates the results of a referendum over a disputed national holiday during an election rally in Pale, Bosnia and Herzegovina, September 25, 2016. (Source: Reuters\/Dado Ruvic)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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As part of our effort to broaden expertise and understanding of information ecosystems around the world, the DFRLab is publishing this external contribution. We are building the community of #DigitalSherlocks. The views and assessments in this open-source analysis do not necessarily represent those of the DFRLab.<\/em><\/p>\n

In recent years, a few initiatives have developed in the Balkans to increase digital resilience against disinformation. At the same time, both the sophistication and the volume of disinformation and media manipulation efforts has risen substantially. A fast-growing initiative called\u00a0Raskrinkavanje<\/a>\u00a0(\u201cunmasking\u201d or \u201cdebunking\u201d in Bosnian) has led the way in identifying and cataloguing known media manipulation campaigns targeting Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), as well as the wider region.<\/p>\n

The study, \u201cDisinformation in the Online Sphere \u2014 the Case of BiH<\/a>,\u201d looked into a database of a year of debunks done by Raskrinkavanje that consisted of 1,486 media reports by 477 media outlets\u00a0proven to contain<\/a>\u00a0at least one example of media manipulation.<\/p>\n

One of the most valuable findings of the study was the exposure of a \u201cdisinformation hub\u201d of media outlets that frequently republished the same disinformation stories and spread similar messages. This hub consisted of 29 media outlets, almost completely coming from Republika Srpska (an administrative entity within BiH with a Serb majority) and Serbia. Based on the topics covered and the fact that is was most active in the months before the 2018 elections, it is safe to say that its\u2019 goal was to instigate political and ethnic tensions in order to propel the agenda of the ruling party of Republika Srpska before the elections.<\/p>\n

Among the outlets in the hub, only one was foreign owned:\u00a0Sputnik Serbia<\/em>. The government of Republika Srpska is openly allied with the Kremlin, which has the consequence of allowing the outlet to propagate its pro-Russian and anti-Western messaging without impunity.<\/p>\n

The study also analyzed the links between the 477 outlets spreading disinformation and found that the links between these 29 outlets are, by far, more powerful than between any other media in the sample. These connections were measured based on the number of same disinformation published and republished by the outlets, as well as the importance and reach of the disinformation articles themselves. While it is impossible to prove coordination, based on the time and sequences of publishing and the number of the same reports published, it is also safe to say that there was obvious coordination between several of the main outlets in the hub.<\/p>\n

This disinformation hub has been used for two main purposes: first, to propel the local position of the government of Republika Srpska and its largest party, SNSD, and its\u2019 leaders; and, second, to promote pro-Russia messages and propagate anti-Western values.<\/p>\n

This piece examines four examples of disinformation narratives disseminated by the hub. Two cases relate to BiH, one relates to the United States and Russia, and one relates to Serbia and Kosovo.<\/p>\n

State-operated companies allegedly discriminate against Serbs<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The\u00a0first story<\/a>, published in July 2017, reported that Pokop, a state-operated burial company from Sarajevo, was coercing the families of the deceased to pay the accumulated debts by marking graves for which the family failed to pay maintenance fees with stickers. Four months later,\u00a0Glas Srpske<\/em>\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that Pokop was preparing to exhume the graves of Serbs who had not paid in Sarajevo. Informer further\u00a0claimed<\/a>\u00a0that excavation of 13,000 grave sites of Serbs had already begun.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0an article debunking<\/a>\u00a0this disinformation, Raskrinkavanje identified 16 media outlets from the disinformation hub that published this story, both in Serbia and in BiH: Sputnik Serbia, Informer, Blic, Alo, Kurir, Srbin info, Tanjug, Vesti online, Srbija Danas, RTS, Srbin, and Republika from Serbia; and RTRS, ATV, Glas Srpske, and SRNA from BiH.<\/p>\n

This narrative used a conspiracy theory to portray state-operated companies in Sarajevo broadly as discriminatory of Serbs. The aim, as with a lot of disinformation targeting BiH, was to deepen the latent ethnic conflict between Bosnians and Serbs and to increase the negative attitude of the Republika Srpska population toward Sarajevo and its institutions.<\/p>\n

Chomsky supposedly denigrated Albanians, called them \u201cungrateful\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The second story surfaced in January 2018, when SRNA, the state news agency of Republika Srpska,\u00a0republished<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 and later deleted \u2014 an old false claim that U.S. philosopher\u00a0Noam Chomsky<\/a>\u00a0had referred to Albanians as \u201ca wild tribe\u201d and described them as \u201cungrateful to Serbs in Kosovo who welcomed them to their territory.\u201d The quote was a complete fabrication.\u00a0Raskrinkavanje<\/em>\u00a0identified<\/a>\u00a0that the story was picked up by nine media outlets from the hub.<\/p>\n

In putting forth this narrative, SRNA provided no evidence to support its claims. Such narratives are spread to aggravate the conflict between the Serbs and Albanians about the political status of Kosovo. Even if Republika Srpska had no immediate issue with Kosovo in this particular case, having its state news agency fabricate such a story can exacerbate ethnic tensions.<\/p>\n

Denzel Washington purportedly praised U.S. President Donald Trump<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In February 2018, the third story emerged: USA Liberty Press, a conservative website, published a (later\u00a0debunked<\/a>) claim that actor Denzel Washington had praised Donald Trump for saving the United States from a war with Russia and becoming \u201can Orwellian police state.\u201d Anonymous portal Webtribune\u00a0translated<\/a>\u00a0that article into the local language, while Sputnik Serbia produced a\u00a0follow-up story<\/a>\u00a0asking several pundits to comment on the made-up statement. It also issued\u00a0another fabricated story<\/a>\u00a0that added a local spin by connecting the made-up quote to\u00a0an episode<\/a>\u00a0of a National Geographic show, \u201cStory of Us,\u201d about the Srebrenica genocide perpetrated by the Bosnian Serb army during the war in Bosnia, and implied that Denzel Washington and Morgan Freeman (who narrates the program) are in dispute over Russia and Serbia.<\/p>\n

Raskrinkavanje\u00a0showed<\/a>\u00a0that the story was published in eight different media outlets from the disinformation hub, demonstrating how far an entity functioning as a hub can extend the reach of disinformation narratives and how foreign topics get reused for domestic audiences.<\/p>\n

BiH is allegedly planning to attack Republika Srpska<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Finally, in June 2018, a small cache of weapons and ammunition remaining from the 1992\u20131995 war\u00a0was discovered<\/a>\u00a0during the demolition of an abandoned house in the village of Matuzi\u0107i, a village in BiH. Two days later, SRNA\u00a0reported<\/a>, without any supporting evidence, that the cache had been found \u201cin a warehouse\u201d and \u201cnear a mosque\u201d and failed to mention that the weapons were probably there because they stayed after the war. This change of narrative allowed SRNA, as well as other outlets to present this as evidence of \u201cparamilitary formations from the Federation BiH stockpiling weapons for an attack on Republika Srpska.\u201d<\/p>\n

The false spin\u00a0was picked up<\/a>\u00a0by 13 media outlets from the hub. The underlying narrative tactic was a common one: to use the imminent threat of lethal conflict to incite fear and hysteria in the population.<\/p>\n

Sputnik Serbia\u2019s role in the region<\/strong><\/h2>\n

These cases also demonstrated the crucial role\u00a0Sputnik Serbia\u00a0<\/em>plays in disinformation in the region. The outlet is based in Serbia but funded by and through the eponymous Russian parent company; the outlet produces and distributes content in the local language about and for the whole region of the Western Balkans and also provides news agency services, similar to the model used in other regions.\u00a0Sputnik Serbia<\/em>, however, might not be the biggest producer of disinformation in the hub \u2014 that distinction belonged to Republika Srpska public broadcaster RTRS, Republika Srpska\u2019s state-owned news agency SRNA, and several commercial media outlets owned by people close to the government of Republika Srpska. Raskrinkavanje identified 124 pieces of disinformation disseminated by RTRS, 51 by the\u00a0Alternativna TV\u00a0<\/em>commercial station, and 51 by SRNA, while\u00a0Sputnik Serbia\u00a0<\/em>had only 36 instances of disinformation.<\/p>\n

Sputnik Serbia<\/em>\u00a0is, however, together with RTRS, the most connected outlet in the hub, sharing disinformation articles with the most outlets in the hub. Additionally, Russia, like some other international actors, has proxies in BiH and neighboring countries. Thus, foreign disinformation efforts are spread not only via foreign-owned or foreign-funded media but also through local allies and proxies. That the government of Republika Srpska and its ruling party are open allies with the Kremlin ensures that these proxies operate freely.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Network map showing the strength of connection of individual outlets in the disinformation hub based on the number of different pieces of disinformation published jointly. (Source:\u00a0@darko_brkan<\/a>\/Za\u0161to Ne)<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In conclusion, the research revealed that the disinformation problem in BiH, as well as the region, needs to be understood as a hybrid threat and that there is low awareness of that fact among local stakeholders. The congruence of media disinformation and specific political interests raises concerns about targeted disinformation campaigns in the online sphere, some definitely related to foreign actors and sources, particularly Russia. Conversely, the key stakeholders have low awareness of such influences, despite being acutely aware of the overall problem of disinformation in the media.<\/p>\n

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WRITTEN BY @DFRLab <\/a><\/p>\n

(original link)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Darko Brkan<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is the co-founding President of Za\u0161to ne (\u201cWhy not\u201d), a civil society organization promoting accountability and participation, fact-checking politicians\u2019 statements and promises, and combatting disinformation and media manipulation in BiH and southeastern <\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Balkans have made progress in tackling disinformation, but bad actors have grown more sophisticated. As part of our effort to broaden expertise and understanding of information ecosystems around the world, the DFRLab is publishing this external contribution. We are building the community of #DigitalSherlocks. The views and assessments in this open-source analysis do not necessarily … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":6725,"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":[31,33,32,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-civic-activism","category-government-accountability","category-new-technologies","category-zasto-ne-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6724","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6724"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6730,"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6724\/revisions\/6730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zastone.ba\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}