Meta’s Copyright System Is Being Weaponized Against Albanian Protesters

Meta’s Copyright System Is Being Weaponized Against Albanian Protesters. “This tactic of mass copyright reporting, commonly called brigading, is an abuse of the systems that Meta has in place for people to report genuinely problematic, abusive, dangerous, or illegal content on their platforms,” said Kian Vesteinsson, deputy director for tech policy and digital rights research at Freedom House.

What happened

The Meta account suspensions almost all appear to be the result of copyright complaints and appear to have begun in late August. Skip to main contentSave this storySave this storyEuropean lawmakers are calling for an investigation into Meta after the mass suspension of accounts posting about anti-government protests in Albania, in what observers believe is a coordinated brigading attack. She is one of more than 30 Members of the European Parliament who signed a letter asking the European Commission to investigate whether Meta's actions complied with the EU's Digital Services Act.

The “Flamingo Revolution” protests, initially sparked by the development of a luxury resort linked to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, have been taking place daily in the Albanian capital for over three months, demanding changes in the law that allows development on protected land as well as the resignation of the country’s prime minister. An NGO group investigating the Meta suspensions alleges to WIRED it has evidence that “strongly indicates coordinated activity” led to the complaints.

“We also identified that multiple posts on an account would receive copyright complaints, often five to 10 in a relatively short period, followed by escalating enforcement and, in some cases, the disabling of the entire account,” Dimitratou says. “Taken together, the alleged paid reporting, the repeated sequence of copyright complaints followed by account enforcement, the concentration of targets around the same movement, and the repeated targeting of replacement accounts strongly indicate coordinated activity,” Dimitratou added.

The wider picture

Repro Uncensored found that nearly all affected accounts appeared to be targeted with reports of copyright infringement. On August 20, Arjan Koçi began receiving an influx of emails from Meta. But it was my video, my voice, my picture,” says Koçi, a British-Albanian who had been documenting the protest on his Instagram account since June. “If you receive too many of these reports, Meta will restrict your account,” he told WIRED. Around the same time, he said, several other protesters were also facing similar reports against their accounts.

“Our research has found that copyright claims can trigger enforcement more readily than many other forms of reporting,” said Dimitratou, adding that often multiple complaints are deliberately directed at the same account, making them vulnerable to automated suspensions. And specifically, the copyright framework set out under the DMCA, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. A Meta spokesperson told WIRED that the accounts were removed in error and have been restored, without commenting on the investigation.

What has been reported

Koci and others have accused the Albanian government of orchestrating attacks. Albanian prime minister Edi Rama has rejected the accusations. European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier confirmed in a press briefing that the commission is already investigating Meta over concerns relating to the shadow banning of political voices and said the latest allegations were “definitely not a surprise. ” The commission confirmed that the investigation is ongoing and highlighted the role of the Digital Services Act in enabling users to challenge unjustified content moderation decisions.

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What happens next

Miles KleeICE Wants to Know Everyone Who Bought a Certain Green Beanie From REI in the Last 2 YearsHomeland Security Investigations agents hit the outdoor retailer with a controversial subpoena as part of a dragnet search for the identities of protesters who entered a Minnesota church in March. After three months of daily anti-government protests—dubbed the Flamingo Revolution—the sudden mass suspension of Instagram accounts has led to fears of brigading against demonstrators. “What happened in Albania is tantamount to censorship,” said MEP Alexandra Geese in a statement.

“Mark Zuckerberg’s understanding of ‘freedom of speech’ only seems to cover opinions that align with the political agenda of the Trump administration. This is precisely why we have European rules,” she added. “What quickly distinguished this from ordinary content moderation was the concentration of cases around the same political and civic movement,” said Martha Dimitratou, founder of Repro Uncensored, a nonprofit organization that tracks digital censorship. In at least one case, the complaint was traced to someone who claimed they had been paid to make the complaint.