On TikTok, Albanians are invited to damage Serbian monuments, caution is required

Two days after the terrorist attack on the Ibër Lepenci channel, through TikTok, a page called Kingdom of Dardania invited Albanians to take revenge on two Serbian monuments, one in the center of Kosovo and the other in the north.

The call for violence and revenge has caught the attention of many TikTok users.

The call for the first target has received 100 thousand views, 334 comments and over 2600 likes. Its target is the statue of Milosh Obiliq here in the center of Graçanica. Many of the commenters misled by this person or by this site, behind which it should not be who stands, express willingness to join the call for revenge.

Another monument or object against which citizens are invited to take revenge is the statue of Prince Lazar at the entrance to the square in Northern Mitrovica.

The former police investigator during the March 2004 riots calls these calls dangerous, and calls for caution.

Murat Mehmeti thinks that calls for violence can have two purposes, political benefit or some interest of a country in the background, in this case Serbia.

"Usually, interest groups, criminal political groups, in order to come to power or to return the favors they had earlier, manipulate the mass.... they want the stability of the country, even Serbia, as long as we are in these relations with they always have an interest in using non-residents to cause social discontent, expressions, demonstrations or acts of vandalism," Murat Mehmeti emphasized for RTV Dukagjini - former police investigator.

The medium has requested information from the Kosovo Police if they are analyzing this call and if they have taken any action, but until the publication of this chronicle they have not responded.

This TikTok page has camouflaged the call for violence as a way to take revenge for a tombstone in Preševo ​​with the names of the 27 fallen martyrs of the UÇPMB, which was removed by the Serbian police and army in 2013.

Researchers from organizations for regulating the content of information in the digital space also call for caution.

"In TikTok, it is usually uncontrollable who opens a page and who publishes, they are all free with the public, therefore TikTok is not a genuine platform with which the audience was informed, and it should be taken into account that I take these with care, the contents different things that are published on TikTok that it is not known who is behind them", stated Festim Rizanaj - Hultumtues in Hibrid.

Rizanaj says that there is a need for mobilization among the audience, institutions and media to report these pages and to prevent the incitement of inter-ethnic incidents, especially due to the fact that TikTok has a high level of use.

The page, which has 640 thousand likes, made its first post in August 2023 with the content of a humorous series, then intensified the posts a day after the terrorist attack in Bansjka, combining the content with politics, with the KSF, the Police and even with the KLA.