Instagram bot campaigns target activists and media in Western Balkans ^{CEFR B1}

Coordinated bot operations struck activist and media Instagram accounts across the Western Balkans in November 2025. Meta.mk News Agency published accounts on November 16 and November 23, 2025 that describe near-simultaneous campaigns exploiting automated rules on the platforms to reduce visibility and silence critics.

In Serbia the Students in Blockade movement detected a sudden rush of suspicious followers on its main profile, above 1 million followers, and parallel attacks on faculty accounts. Student Balša Bulatović said investigators identified two main tactics: a flood of fake, often foreign, follower accounts and mass reports alleging inappropriate content to trigger automatic locks. IT Blokada warned publicly and collective action helped some groups regain control and respond.

Earlier in November North Macedonia’s Sloboden Pechat was flooded for a week with hundreds of identical bot comments saying "like". Usernames looked automated and the campaign moved from spam comments to mass liking, which is hard to remove. Sloboden Pechat temporarily locked its profile, reported a drop in reach and asked readers to interact to counter the loss. Cyber-security expert Božidar Spirovski warned that paid bot services are widespread, can mislead algorithms, and are difficult to defend against.