The online world has become a key platform of political confrontation in Montenegro. Social media enables political parties and activists to reach a large number of people very quickly. In order to achieve the effect of increased visibility and popularity of certain materials online, these parties and activists use fake accounts, creating fictitious personalities. Such user accounts offer their support via interactions, comments, and sharing of the content. These social media activities have intensified due to the turbulent socio-political situation.
Conducting Facebook monitoring daily, the Digital Forensic Center has detected a coordinated inauthentic behaviour of a network of bot profiles aimed at promoting certain politics and views, thus influencing public opinion. This coordinated inauthentic behaviour implies synchronised and misleading actions of multiple Facebook entities.
The bot profiles Gordana Raičević, Josif Lalatović, Vojislav Milanović, Asmir Dautović, Petar Pravilović and Marija Piletić are continuously promoting and offering their support to Dritan Abazović and the Civic Movement URA, while simultaneously targeting other political subjects. When it comes to the negative posts, their usual targets include the prime minister of Montenegro Milojko Spajić, the Minister of Justice Andrej Milović, and members of the Europe Now Movement and Democratic Party of Socialists. The analysis observed that the bot profiles shared identical or similar posts online in a short period of time, attempting to discredit political opponents. The narrative about a collaboration between Europe Now Movement and the Democratic Party of Socialists has been promoted through coordinated posts, as well as the narrative that the mafia will once again control Montenegro using the Minister of Justice Andrej Milović and prime minister Milojko Spajić. On the other hand, the same profiles highlight that Dritan Abazović is the only one confronting the mafia and crime, representing a thorn in their side.
Indicatively, the aforementioned bots are part of a network associated with the Civic Movement URA, which the DFC identified in February 2022 when the no-confidence vote for Zdravko Krivokapić’s government was passed, and negotiations for a new government began. In its analysis the DFC determined that the accounts are interlinked, as they are friends on Facebook with each other, like each other’s comments, have the same Facebook friends, and share a common interest in the same pages. The profile pictures of the accounts can be easily found by searching online, or are created using artificial intelligence on sites such as thispersondoesnotexist. The DFC warned about the synergy of the bot accounts and certain media during September 2023, when the aforementioned fake Facebook accounts promoted a narrative about the member of the Presidency Europe Now Movements member Andrej Milović. The unverified information was published by portals Borba and Srpska RTV.
The examples set forth indicate coordination of Facebook accounts whose activities may carry consequences for the perception of reality of users online, and through which the users’ opinions and decisions are shaped. The activities of the bot network create an illusion that the support for certain political parties is greater than it actually is. The coordinated inauthentic behaviour on social media may have serious consequences on society, information and the democratic processes. Through their activities, the DFC will thus continue to raise the awareness of citizens about the misuse and coordinated activities on social media platforms during sensitive socio-political events, and promote transparency and responsibility online.