As Kosovo Election Nears, Women Bear Brunt of Online Abuse and Manipulation

In late April, with former President Vjosa Osmani’s return to the opposition Democratic League of Kosovo, LDK, all but confirmed, a photograph surfaced online showing party leader Lumir Abdixhiku kneeling before her. The caption read: “Lumir is begging Vjosa to come to the LDK.”

Osmani’s five-year term as Kosovo’s president ended on April 4. Parliamentary deadlock over who should succeed her has forced another snap election, scheduled for June 7. And as the campaign heats up, social media is awash with AI-generated propaganda like the photo of Osmani and Abdixhiku.

In one video published on TikTok on May 13, a young woman is interviewed supposedly saying: “The opposition has joined forces with Srpska Lista to overthrow Albin Kurti, but the voters will put them in their place in the elections.”

Kurti is Kosovo’s outgoing prime minister. Srpska Lista is the main party representing Kosovo’s Serb minority and is backed by Serbia’s ruling Progressive Party.

Hive, an online platform dedicated to detecting AI-generated content, put the probability that the video was created by AI at 99.9 per cent.