Attacks on media outlets and organizations, online attacks against “Sloboden Pechat”, 07.04.2026.

Translations: Skopje 

The Association of Journalists of Macedonia (ZNM) reacts to the repeated coordinated bot attacks on the official Instagram profiles of the medium “Sloboden Pechat”, the last two of which happened in the past 48 hours, including the attack from dawn.

According to available information, within a few minutes, thousands of suspicious profiles, most often from abroad, reacted en masse with likes to the publication of the Sloboden Pechat profile on Instagram, which indicates an organized and malicious activity with the aim of violating the digital integrity of the medium.

These incidents are not isolated, they are part of a series of repeated attacks in the past five months, which indicates a clear and worrying pattern of systematic digital harassment and pressure on the medium. Such attacks represent a serious threat to the freedom of media, their independence and the right of the public to be informed. The fact that the “Meta” platform, which includes Instagram, does not provide effective mechanisms for the protection of public media profiles from this type of attack is particularly worrying.

Recommendations for “locking” profiles are unacceptable for mediums, as this directly limits their reach, transparency and role in the public interest.

Therefore, we expect the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Department for Computer Crime and Digital Forensics to act urgently, to investigate these attacks, to determine their origin and to take appropriate measures to sanction those responsible.

At the same time, we call on the competent institutions to develop systemic mechanisms for the protection of media from digital attacks, as well as to strengthen cooperation with international technology companies with the aim of preventing such abuses.