Prime Minister Edi Rama has linked the mass protests in Albania to a widespread campaign of disinformation and cyber intrusion through fake videos and bot networks.
During an interview for CNN with journalist Eleni Giokos, he warned that these online manipulations are directly undermining the functioning of modern democracies and political processes in Europe.
Rama also harshly criticized the misuse of the freedom of information dissemination on social networks.
“It has been provoked mainly because Kushner and Trump, the shadow behind them, are enough to make many people from different countries and continents react immediately. But the amount of disinformation, the fake videos, the videos taken from protests in other countries and presented as protests in Albania, the amount of bots that have entered there from our enemy…
We have an enemy, the only enemy is the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they have been conducting a relentless cyber attack against Albania for three years and have also been involved in this issue.
This amount of madness is eroding our democracies from within and is leading the European space in directions that, sooner rather than later, will completely destroy the sense of politics, decision-making and compromise in this part of the world. Therefore, it is time for democracies to no longer believe that ‘freedom of information’ is an extension of freedom of expression. Freedom of information is what every regime, through propaganda, has used to instill lies into every mind,” said Rama.