Conservative traditions fuel sexual cyberbullying – DW – 05.07.2024

Ardiana Thaci, a prominent television journalist in Kosovo, had no idea what personal consequences her investigative research could have until she became the target of aggressive cyberbullies after her report on the self-proclaimed “Albkings” was broadcast.

The name refers to a group of men who are active on the social media platform Telegram. In the report, Thaci accused the men of publishing intimate photos and videos of women without their permission in order to insult, intimidate and abuse them.

Thaci’s report describes how the group, which at one point had up to 100,000 members, operates. She explained how the men send each other photos of women they know or have seen online and, under the guise of their chatroom, sometimes distribute intimate images of their victims. Those who know the women personally then pass on their phone numbers and other personal information. Most of the men in the group – and their victims – live in Kosovo and Albania, but the photos and videos they post also appear in neighboring countries.

Thanks to the internet, the images spread everywhere in seconds and posts from the Telegram chat receive millions of views. Police in Kosovo say at least 32 cases of illegally distributed images have been reported this year alone, but it is clear that the real number is far higher. Videos uploaded by the group have appeared on TikTok accounts in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia.

In the sights of the “Albkings”

After Thaci’s story was published, she herself became the target of Albking’s wrath. A group member found her phone number and shared it in the chat. Since then, she has been bombarded with calls in which anonymous callers ask things like: “How much do you charge for sex?”

Thaci’s children were also attacked. “Last Sunday morning I got really nervous,” she said during an interview in the Kosovan capital Pristina, “the phone rang and an EU number appeared on the display. It was 8 a.m. and my five-year-old son had answered because I was sleeping.” The caller insulted the journalist with obscene questions. She simply could not understand how someone could use a child as an accomplice in such a heinous attack, she said.

The Kosovo Journalists Association said the publication of Thaci’s phone number was not only an act of revenge by the Albkings, but also a threat to their safety and an attempt to intimidate them, destroy their reputation and silence them.

Domestic violence and cyberbullying

In June 2024, there was another case where the news site kallxo.com published a report about a domestic violence incident in which a woman and her father were injured. According to the journalist who investigated the case, neither the police nor the prosecutor’s office properly followed up on the incident. Although the site kept the journalist’s name secret, her identity quickly became public knowledge and she immediately became a victim of online attacks.

“Within a few hours of the publication, the name and photo of our colleague were published on an Albking Telegram channel with instructions to call her,” recalls Kreshnik Gashi, the editor-in-chief of kallxo.com.

The journalist then received hundreds of obscene phone calls. The police have now arrested four people in connection with the case.

At the end of June, seven Albking administrators were arrested and the Telegram channel was closed. Chief Public Prosecutor Zeynullah Gashi has promised to investigate the case and bring the perpetrators to justice. However, victims report that a new chat has been opened. According to Telegram, at least 20,000 Albkings are currently active on the platform.

“Women are unimportant!”

For psychologist Kaltrina Ajeti, it is no surprise that journalists are being targeted. Because they are seen as self-confident members of society and publicly stand for change in Kosovo.

“Women’s economic independence has led to a crisis of masculinity in Kosovar society. Until now, men have created and dominated the prevailing social order,” she said.

This fact has far-reaching consequences: “Confident women do not accept a patriarchal mindset that demands that they be sexually dominated.”

As evidence of such a case, psychologist Ajeti points to a debate on in vitro fertilization (IVF) that took place in April this year. Feminist activist Dana Avdiu was involved in a movement promoting IVF under the slogan: “We don’t need men.” This move, says Ajeti, was seen as an attack on men in Kosovo.

When a law to allow unmarried women access to IVF treatment was put to a vote in Kosovo’s parliament, it failed because the majority of members walked out of the plenary and no quorum could be reached. Disappointed feminist Avdiu summed up the vote in three words: “Women are unimportant!”

Conservative values ​​and sexual frustration

But psychologist Ajeti says not every man in Kosovo should be held responsible for what the albkings do. She also tries to understand what lies behind their anger. Looking closer, she comes to the conclusion that men in Kosovo are a product of their upbringing and the values ​​their parents instilled in them. Traditionally, this means that women are forbidden to have premarital sex. More than anywhere else, any violation of these rules is immediately accompanied by rumors and then insults within the entire family.

“If you consider how most young men grow up in Kosovo, how great their sexual frustration is and how rare appropriate information about sexual development is, then this naturally leads to trauma, to frustrations that are projected onto the opposite sex,” says the psychologist.

The number of cyberbullying cases in Kosovo has increased exponentially in recent years. According to official statistics, more than 450 complaints were filed in 2023, twice as many as in 2022. However, new laws to combat online crime are far away.

This article was translated from German by Jon Shelton.