Another row has broken out in Lithuania over the populist opposition party Nemunas Dawn – critics of the party believes that party blocks opponents the social network Facebook, and experts have raised concerns about influencing opinion in the digital environment.
Lithuanian communications specialist Karols Žukauskas told LRT that his Facebook account was restricted after he published information about the potentially dubious sources of funding for Nemunas Dawn. He added that the party has also blocked users who had shared his post. In turn, Žukauskas’ own account has been flooded with fake followers from abroad, and their number sometimes increases by tens of thousands in one night. Currently, the communications specialist’s Facebook account is followed by around 145,000 other accounts.
Žukauskas has called on the authorities to reopen the investigation into the party’s financing, noting that donations from private individuals and legal entities were obtained in a non-transparent manner. A previous investigation into the financial affairs of Nemunas Dawn was terminated because the dubious donations did not reach 25,000 euros.
Experts addressed by LRT indicated that it is not clear what caused such activity, but warned that the prevalence of fake accounts on social networks is worrying. The head of the Civic Resilience Initiative, Tomas Kazulėnas, said that he does not remember similar cases. He noted that the Facebook account of Nemunas Dawn leader Remigijus Žemaitaitis shows trends that are usually associated with so-called bot activity – the number of followers on his account has grown significantly in a short time. Kazulėnas said that if everything was going normally,
the account’s follower count would increase gradually, with more activity only after major events.
Viktors Daukšas, director of the disinformation analysis center Debunk.org, pointed out that bots are usually used to increase the number of followers and create the impression that the profile owner is popular, but in this case the goal could be to discredit and restrict content. He added that there is not enough information to find out who is behind the strange activities, and stressed that without the involvement of Facebook’s parent company Meta, finding answers would be difficult.
Roberts Puchovič, a member of the board of Nemunas Dawn, denied knowing anything about the fake accounts. He said that the party’s Facebook account is managed by party members, not external social media experts, and that Žemaitaitis writes his own posts.
Experts have warned that restrictions on social media could raise concerns about the existence of political debate and democracy. Kazulėnas said that the use of fake accounts to manipulate visibility, algorithms and platform infrastructure instead of shaping debate poses a risk to democratic societies.
Read the full article in English here: https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/2848276/fake-followers-and-frozen-accounts-digital-battle-around-lithuania-s-nemunas-dawn
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