The SafeJournalists Network expresses concern over a growing number of unexplained restrictions and account-access problems affecting media, activists and other public-interest voices on Meta platforms in Albania. On 5 September, the official Instagram account of Euronews Albania, a private main television and digital news outlet, became inaccessible. Later the same day, the official Facebook page of Citizens.al, an independent media outlet that has reported continuously on the civic mobilization since it began and has documented the recent wave of account restrictions, also became inaccessible.
On 5 September, Euronews Albania announced thatits official Instagram account had become inaccessible without prior notice or warning, displaying the message “user not found”. The outlet said it had received no public explanation from Meta for what had happened to the account. Citizens.al told SafeJournalists that its Facebook page also became inaccessible without prior warning or explanation and that this was not the first time its Facebook presence had faced restrictions.
These developments come against the background of a wider and still insufficiently explained series of account restrictions in Albania. Earlier this week,BIRN/Reporter.al documented the disappearance or restriction of dozens of Instagram accountsassociated with activists, civic initiatives and people supporting or documenting the ongoing protests in the country. Citizens.al also documented cases in which users lost access at approximately the same time, as well as earlier incidents involving repeated copyright complaints against protest-related photographs and videos.
In a response to BIRN Albania on 4 September, Meta acknowledged that some of the affected accounts had been removed incorrectly, said that some had already been restored and that it was continuing to review the enforcement actions taken. However, Meta did not disclose how many accounts had been affected, what caused the erroneous decisions, or whether coordinated or abusive reporting by third parties had contributed to them.
At present, there is no public evidence establishing that the inaccessibility of Euronews Albania’s Instagram account or Citizens.al’s Facebook page has the same cause as the earlier cases, or that these incidents are directly connected. Euronews Albania and Citizens.al retain other channels, while for some activists and civic initiatives Instagram has been a primary or even the only direct route to the public. Even so, unexplained restrictions on established media accounts remain a serious media-freedom concern: they disrupt distribution and, when affecting multiple public-interest voices, can undermine pluralism and access to information. These developments are particularly concerning in the current sensitive socio-political context in Albania, where journalists and media covering protests and other matters of public interest continue to face pressure, hostile rhetoric and attempts at delegitimisation from political and public actors.
SafeJournalists therefore calls on Meta to urgently conduct human reviews of the Euronews Albania and Citizens.al cases, provide both outlets with clear explanations of the status of their accounts and the reasons for their inaccessibility, and restore full access without delay if no legitimate violation of the platform’s rules can be established.
More broadly, SafeJournalists calls on Meta to clarify the circumstances surrounding the recent erroneous removal and restriction of accounts in Albania; investigate whether coordinated, abusive or malicious third-party reporting, including misuse of copyright mechanisms, contributed to any of these decisions; and explain what safeguards are in place to prevent legitimate media, journalists, civic actors and other public-interest accounts from being penalised through manipulation of platform reporting systems. Meta should ensure an effective and rapid human-review and appeal mechanism for media and other public-interest accounts facing potentially erroneous restrictions, and communicate the outcome of its review of the recent Albanian cases.
Platforms whose decisions can significantly affect the reach of journalism and public-interest expression have a responsibility to ensure that enforcement is transparent, proportionate and resistant to manipulation, with clear reasons and effective remedies when mistakes occur.
The SafeJournalists Network will inform relevant national and international stakeholders about this matter and will continue to monitor the situation.
Pristina – Skopje – Sarajevo – Zagreb – Belgrade – Podgorica – Tirana, 6 September 2026
Association of Journalists of Albania
Association of Journalists of Kosovo
Association of Journalists of Macedonia
BH Journalists Association
Croatian Journalists’ Association
Independent Journalists’ Association of Serbia
Trade Union of Media of Montenegro
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