MONITORING REPORT ON HATE SPEECH IN KOSOVO 2025
October 18, 2025
Between 2024 and 2025, a total of 114 hate or disinformation incidents were documented in Kosovo. These incidents span various target groups, media platforms, and perpetrator profiles.
During this period, Kosovo continued to navigate a post-war reality shaped by fragile interethnic relations, political volatility, and the growing influence of digital media. Against this backdrop, this report aims to analyse hate and disinformation narratives that emerged across online and traditional media, with a particular focus on how vulnerable groups and public discourse were targeted and shaped.
The most frequently targeted group was based on ethnicity, with 27 incidents involving xenophobia, ethnic discrimination, or racism. Gender-based hatred followed with 22 incidents, while journalists were the third most targeted group (14 incidents), illustrating the vulnerability of media actors in public discourse.
Private individuals were the most frequent perpetrators, responsible for over 42% of all incidents (50 cases). This was followed by political actors (20 cases) and media personnel or journalists (15 cases). In many cases, hate narratives involved hybrid actors (e.g., politician + journalist), blurring the line between institutional and personal communication.
Social media, especially Facebook, was the dominant medium for hate dissemination, implicated in over 76 incidents either as a sole or joint platform. Online portals (often quoting unverified sources or publishing misleading headlines) followed, with frequent overlap across multiple platforms including YouTube, Telegram, and X (Twitter).
A majority of incidents were characterized by negative character attacks (78 cases), often including slurs, delegitimizing labels, and dehumanizing comparisons. A smaller but significant share involved calls to violence (15 cases) and negative actions (16 cases), reflecting moments of intensified hostility.
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