Albanian Activists Are Losing Instagram Accounts. A Complainant Admitted a $1,800 Crypto Payment

Albanian activists, journalists and opposition politicians who document anti-government protests on social networks have been losing their accounts since summer. It is not a censor's intervention, but copyright infringement complaints, after which the platform can restrict or delete a profile before properly investigating the dispute. The organization Repro Uncensored, which monitors such cases worldwide, has documented dozens of interventions and also cites a case where one of the complainants allegedly admitted to receiving $1,800 in cryptocurrency. No one has yet documented who paid him, and Prime Minister Edi Rama categorically denies any government involvement.

The Tool is Not Censorship, But Copyright

Repro Uncensored published its findings in a press release dated August 31. According to the organization, the interventions affected dozens of accounts and platforms reaching hundreds of thousands of people, and most cases follow the same pattern: an account receives repeated copyright infringement notices and the platform restricts or deletes it before verifying whether the claims are justified. Repro Uncensored ↗

This is the crux of the matter. Copyright reporting is among the least controlled parts of content moderation because the system acts quickly and verifies only afterwards. Journalist Alesia Burnazi, who documented the protests for almost three months, began losing videos on August 19. Activist Arjan Koci had his account with 40,000 followers deleted, and the same fate befell new profiles he subsequently created. A student platform with approximately 85,000 followers has been inaccessible since June 9.

According to the organization, Koci claims that the person filing the complaints admitted to him that they received $1,800 in cryptocurrency for removing multiple accounts. "When bad-faith actors can pay to have political voices erased and Meta's systems automatically execute the removal, the platform's infrastructure becomes a tool of censorship," said Martha Dimitratou, founder and executive director of Repro Uncensored.

The organization also emphasizes what has not been documented. Activists suspect government ties, but who coordinated and financed the campaign has not yet been proven. Repro Uncensored is investigating and is asking Meta and TikTok to disclose which third parties moderate Albanian content for them and whether anyone from the state communicated with them about these accounts. It is asking the Albanian government the same question.

Politicians, the Number 200, and the European Parliament

In early September, the wave also affected politicians. Independent MP Marjana Koçeku stated that over 200 profiles with protest content disappeared in recent days, particularly during a single day, including the official account of MP Agron Shehaj and the profile of activist Gent Progni. Initial Albanian media reports mentioned 23 accounts, so the numbers differ and no one has independently confirmed them. Balkanweb ↗

Some users had their access restored within hours. Meta admitted that it removed some content by mistake and restored it, but did not explain the mechanism or the origin of the reports. Albeu ↗

Koçeku brought the case to Brussels and it was taken up by the European Democratic Party, which is asking Meta for an explanation. Its Secretary General, MEP Sandro Gozi, stated that when so many accounts disappear at once, it cannot be dismissed as a technical glitch. Vox News ↗

Rama responded on X. "We have absolutely nothing to do with the deactivation or restriction of any account on social networks, nor do we have the technical capacity to carry out such an operation," he wrote. He called the accusations shameful propaganda and, without evidence, hinted that the same forces behind them are behind the Flamingo Revolution. Albeu ↗

In another reaction, he clarified what angered him most. It was not the question itself, he said, but the image that the European Democrats attached to their post. "What angered me was your shameless visual innuendo, and the fact that you refuse to address it perfectly shows what kind of democrats you are," he wrote. Albeu ↗

Why Albanians Have Been Protesting for Nearly a Hundred Days

It started on May 16 as a local dispute. Residents and environmental activists entered a construction site in the Pishë Poro area near the Narta Lagoon, where a luxury resort worth €1.4 billion is to be built, linked to the name of Jared Kushner. The project has a coastal section near the village of Zvërnec in the protected Vjosa-Narta area and a second one on the uninhabited island of Sazan. According to the flamingos that nest in the lagoon, the movement took its name from the Flamingo Revolution.

A turning point came on May 30 at Portonovo, when protesters met with workers of a private security service hired at the construction site. The Albanian Helsinki Committee recorded that one of the residents was forcibly dragged into a fenced area. Since then, the protests have shifted to Tirana and entered a continuous daily phase, counted from May 31. In early June, they expanded to Vlorë, Durrës, Shkodra and other cities. Balkan Insight ↗

The movement now presents four demands: government resignation, a temporary technical government, repeal of laws it considers abusive, including the project at Zvërnec, and free elections. Rama has been in power since 2013 and refuses to leave, saying he will complete his term until 2029. According to continuously aggregated data, three months of protests have resulted in more than twenty injured protesters, civilians and journalists, more than fifteen police officers requiring treatment, dozens arrested and more than a hundred criminal proceedings initiated. Flamingo Revolution ↗

On Thursday, on the 96th day of protest, a march passed through Tirana to the Blloku district, where the party elite lived under communism, with chants calling for the prime minister's arrest. Balkanweb ↗

A Prime Minister Who Blames Algorithms

Rama has long claimed that the streets are not driving the protests, but social networks. He told members of his own party that algorithms poured gasoline on the fire, adding: "The more views you get, the more influence you have. The more influence you have, the more power you hold. Power over whom? Over the slaves of algorithms, over all of us." Balkan Insight ↗

After visiting the mountain village of Theth, he posted images of more than a dozen accounts on Facebook that he labeled as fake and that had commented on criticism of his plans to develop tourism in the mountains. So he himself opened the topic of network manipulation. A few weeks later, independently of that, the question of disappearing accounts of his critics opened. Meanwhile, Rama changed his Facebook profile picture to flamingos, the symbol of protest against him. Balkanweb ↗

Why You Don't Read About It in Slovak

Slovak and Czech media covered the protests. In July they wrote about the 35th and 42nd days, about water cannons and tear gas, and in early August about satellite images showing damage to nature caused by construction. Aktuality.sk ↗

Then they stopped. The last Slovak or Czech article on the topic is from August 8, almost a month has passed since then and the protest has meanwhile moved from the 60th day to the 97th. We found not a single article in Slovak and Czech media archives about blocked accounts. Pravda ↗

That applies to us as well. We last wrote about the Albanian protests on 7 August, when the protest was on its 65th day, and we have not returned to the topic since.

Read also: How Le Monde sees Albania's "flamingo revolution": after 65 days of protests, Rama still refuses to step down

This is not unusual. Reporting follows escalations, and when a protest becomes routine, it stops being news. But precisely then it becomes something else, and that change reaches no one. Yet activists say that networks are the only channel left to them, because domestic media report little about the protest or in a hostile manner.

The Limits of This Perspective

The findings about the campaign come mainly from one organization that specializes in documenting digital censorship, so it views the topic through this lens. The admission about the $1,800 payment is mediated through the affected activist, not backed by any document. The number 200 comes from a politician and has not been independently confirmed; even Repro Uncensored speaks more cautiously of dozens of cases.

Nor is the opposite side verifiable. Rama denied government involvement, yet at the same time hinted without evidence at foreign origins of the protests, which is a claim of the same kind as the one he rejects. Meta admitted errors, but did not say who reported the accounts and whether anyone from the state communicated with the platform about these profiles.

The verifiable core is therefore narrower: accounts of people documenting the protest disappeared for months, it happened through copyright complaints, some of the removals were erroneous and the platform returned them. Who was behind the reporting is an open question, and it is a question for a country that is negotiating EU accession.

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