The report “Monitoring the Code of Conduct on the Responsible Use of Social Media during the 2025 Local Elections,” conducted by Democracy for Development (D4D), analyses political communication on social media during the campaign period of the local elections held on October 12, 2025.
The main objective of the report is to assess compliance with the Code of Conduct for the Responsible Use of Social Media during the 2025 Local Elections, and to identify violations that influenced the campaign atmosphere and the quality of public debate.
Monitoring was conducted in 14 municipalities across Kosovo using a mixed qualitative and quantitative methodology, which combined manual content analysis with the use of the Pikasa platform for the automated detection of problematic comments, posts, and reactions.
The monitoring covered digital platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and online news portals.
Key Findings:
→ 152 violations were identified during the monitoring period (September 1 – October 26, 2025).
→ 95% of the violations occurred on Facebook, confirming it as the dominant platform for pre-election political communication; TikTok accounted for 5% and Instagram for only 1%.
→ Hate speech was the most common form of violation (70%), followed by personal bullying (14%), disinformation (9%), and incitement to violence (1%).
→ Candidates for municipal assemblies were the most frequent offenders (66% of cases), followed by media outlets (13%), political analysts (11%), and mayoral candidates (10%).
Monitoring the code of conduct on the responsible use of social media during the 2025 local elections
→ Among political parties, Vetëvendosje (LVV) was the source of more than half of all identified violations (58%), followed by PDK (13%), Alternativa (6%), AAK (5%), and Srbska Lista (2%).
→ In terms of targets, PDK was the most attacked party (30% of negative content), followed by LVV (16%) and LDK (13%).
→ 40% of violations occurred before the official campaign period, indicating that political actors often test their messages outside the legally permitted timeframe, possibly, to avoid any penalties that might be incurred during the election campaign.
→ Prizren (36%) and Prishtina (21%) recorded the highest number of violations, while no violations were detected in municipalities where ethnic minorities are in the majority.
