Dozens of Instagram accounts belonging to Albanian opposition figures, activists and journalists have been suspended or disabled overnight, prompting calls in the European Parliament for Meta to explain the removals.
The accounts disappeared on the night of September 2, on the 96th day of a protest movement against a luxury resort backed by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of United States President Donald Trump.
The scheme would place hotels on the uninhabited island of Sazan and along the protected Vjosa-Narta coastline in southern Albania. Demonstrators, whose campaign began in late May around the village of Zvërnec, now demand the resignation of Prime Minister Edi Rama and his government.
Among those affected was Agron Shehaj, an MP and leader of the opposition Mundësia party, whose account was disabled on the evening of September 2. He told Politico that unclear suspension rules gave the government “every opportunity to extend its censorship into social media”.
Albanian media initially put the number of accounts at 23, among them that of the activist and IT specialist Gent Progni. Marjana Koçeku, an independent MP, later said more than 200 pages carrying protest content had been closed, a figure that has not been independently confirmed.
Meta said it was reviewing the action taken and had already restored some accounts removed in error. The company apologised for the inconvenience and pointed to its appeals process for users who believe they have been wrongly blocked.
Sandro Gozi, a Renew Europe MEP and secretary-general of the European Democratic Party, said the near-simultaneous disappearance of accounts tied to a single protest movement could not be dismissed as a technical problem. His party has asked the European Commission to seek urgent clarification from Meta and to establish whether Albanian public authorities contacted the company about the accounts.
The EDP also wants the Commission to weigh the case as part of Albania’s accession process. The Digital Services Act, the bloc’s main instrument against opaque content moderation, applies to users inside the EU, and Albania is not yet a member.
Rama has denied any state involvement. He said his administration had nothing to do with the deactivations and lacked the technical means to carry them out, accusing protest organisers of shifting responsibility onto the Government.
The campaign group Repro Uncensored said removals affecting reporters covering the demonstrations began on August 19 and that Meta had acknowledged some of them were errors. Albania’s Special Anti-Corruption Structure is separately examining how coastal land titles inside the development zone were transferred to private hands.
Brussels has said Albania and other Western Balkan states could join the bloc by 2030, with media freedom and the rule of law among the conditions.
