European lawmakers are demanding an investigation into Meta after hundreds of accounts documenting anti-government protests in Albania were suspended, according to complaints that observers describe as a coordinated brigading campaign. More than 30 Members of the European Parliament signed a letter asking the European Commission to determine whether Meta's actions complied with the EU's Digital Services Act. MEP Alexandra Geese called the suspensions tantamount to censorship and said European rules exist precisely because Mark Zuckerberg's view of free speech appears limited to opinions matching the Trump administration's political agenda.
The suspensions largely stemmed from copyright complaints and began in late August, according to the nonprofit Repro Uncensored, which tracks digital censorship. Its founder, Martha Dimitratou, said the group verified about 100 cases of account restrictions tied to the protests and estimates the true number could reach several hundred. She said the concentration of cases around a single political and civic movement distinguished the episode from ordinary content moderation, and that at least one complaint was traced to someone who claimed they were paid to file it. In at least 70 cases, the group confirmed removed posts and videos, account restrictions and lost collaboration features.
The protests, known as the Flamingo Revolution, were initially sparked by a luxury resort development linked to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. They have taken place daily in the Albanian capital for more than three months, with demonstrators demanding changes to a law permitting development on protected land and the resignation of the prime minister. Dimitratou said the targeted accounts collectively reach millions of people, meaning restrictions can cut off access to news, political information, protest documentation and civic voices.
British-Albanian protester Arjan Ko莽i began receiving a flood of Meta emails on August 20 after documenting the demonstrations on Instagram since June. His aerial drone footage showed the scale of the Tirana crowds and drew millions of views. Ko莽i said he was accused of publishing someone else's work even though the video, voice and image were his own, and that at least 20 accounts were closed around the same time. Five complaints against his content came from the same email address, and when he contacted the complainant, the person said he had been paid $1,800 and offered to withdraw the complaints for cryptocurrency. After Ko莽i refused, the person advised him to deactivate his account for a week.
Kian Vesteinsson, deputy director for tech policy and digital rights research at Freedom House, said mass copyright reporting abuses Meta's reporting systems and has been used at scale in conflict settings, including by the Myanmar military. He noted that US platforms follow the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, whose notice-and-takedown provision tends to favor overcompliance. Dimitratou said copyright claims can trigger enforcement more readily than other reports, and that bad actors can weaponize a platform's own enforcement infrastructure by falsely claiming ownership and repeatedly reporting.
A Meta spokesperson told WIRED the accounts were removed in error and have been restored, adding that the company apologizes for the inconvenience and maintains an appeals process. The source of the complaints remains unclear; Ko莽i and others have accused the Albanian government, while Prime Minister Edi Rama rejected the accusations on X, saying his government has no involvement and lacks the technical capability for such an operation. European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier confirmed the commission is already investigating Meta over shadow banning of political voices and said the latest allegations were not a surprise.
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