Operation “Grinning Squinting Face”: Attacks on the Climate Portal Hidden Behind a Smiling Face

There are two key elements of the context of the attack on the Climate Portal.

The first element refers to the attacks on Faktograf.hr, from which the Climate Portal emerged as a separate media. Faktograf.hr is the first specialised Croatian fact-checking media, verified by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) and the European Fact-Checking Standards Network (EFCSN), and is a partner in Meta’s and Tik Tok’s fact-checking programme. The Editor-in-Chief of the Climate Portal is Petar Vidov, who was previously the Editor-in-Chief of the Faktograf.hr portal, and the portal is staffed by  journalists who previously worked at Faktograf.hr. During the coronavirus pandemic, Faktograf.hr and especially Petar Vidov were mercilessly attacked and falsely accused of censorship on Meta’s platforms, especially Facebook, which is still the dominant social media among Croatian users; we were sued for causing damage to the population and even for deaths during the pandemic.

Disinformation narratives and attacks were created and encouraged by fringe media and anonymous websites, prominent political actors through speeches in the European and national parliaments and posts on social media, and influential public actors, most often through appearances in the media and on social media. During the two years of the worst attacks, Faktograf.hr was sued four times for damages by Nenad Bakić, who also filed a criminal complaint against Faktograf on charges of violating Article 127 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Croatia, which prohibits the denial or restriction of freedom of speech or public performance. Faktograf.hr was subjected to a DDoS attack, and the newsroom received around 40 threats of physical violence and death, including those that even the police considered serious enough to act on. Petar Vidov was put on a “kill list” compiled by a man who had amassed an enviable arsenal of weapons at home and was ultimately accused of planning a terrorist attack.

Pandemic disinformation campaigns have planted several narratives against Faktograf in the public space, which continue to be used from time to time. These narratives relate to the implementation of alleged censorship and restrictions on freedom of speech, funding by global powers, ideological and political bias through the representation of extreme left-wing political ideas, and incompetence in checking the factual accuracy of information in the public space. A detailed description of the attacks on Faktograf during the coronavirus pandemic is presented in the case study: When disinformation campaigns fuel hate and harassment – Case study: Faktograf.hr.

The second element refers to the specific source of financing for the launch of the Climate Portal. Namely, the Republic of Croatia, through the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NPOO), has secured funds for the implementation of the measure “Establishment of media fact-checking and a system for public disclosure of data”. The Ministry of Culture and Media and the Agency for Electronic Media are implementing bodies for the measure, and the then 45 million HRK, or €5,972,526 in grants, have been secured for the implementation of the part of the measure relating to the establishment of fact-checking media projects and initiatives. As stated on the website of the Agency for Electronic Media , the general goal of the measure is to “strengthen society’s resistance to misinformation by reducing the amount of misinformation and wrong information in the public space, strengthening information reliability and security when consuming media content and using social networks, strengthening the quality of journalism and credible reporting, and strengthening media literacy. The specific goals of the programme are to strengthen the competencies of existing and develop new independent fact-checkers of the information published in the public space, the media and on social networks, the development of technological programmes and platforms for work on information verification, strengthening the media’s resilience to misinformation and encouraging quality and credible journalism, encouraging media literacy projects based on education on countering misinformation and creating a collaborative platform and repository of verified information.”

The public call for grant funding “Establishment of a media fact-checking mechanism and a public data publication system” was published at the very end of 2022, and two public calls were ultimately conducted, as not all available funds were allocated after the first one. A total of 21 projects were financed through both calls, and the Točno tako platform was launched , on which media outlets selected for co-financing publish checks on the factual accuracy of claims made to the public. All projects approved through public calls have committed to following the principles of work that prescribe independence, transparency, political and other impartiality and independence, relevance, the right to correct errors and publish corrections, and the absence of conflicts of interest. Projects and their media outlets are not required to be verified fact-checking organisations by the IFCN and EFCSN.

The Faktograf Association, in partnership with the University of Zadar, applied for the first public call with the project: “Facts about the Climate Crisis – klima.faktograf.hr,” which aimed to develop and establish a verification of the accuracy of information related to the climate crisis with the aim of strengthening society’s resilience to climate misinformation and improving media literacy through understanding information about the climate crisis. In addition to the launch of the Climate Portal itself, one of the core activities of the project was to research the prevalence and acceptance of climate disinformation among Croatian citizens. The project was co-financed through the public call in the amount of €198,811.44 (98.28%).

First cycle: Towards the public call for grants

The very announcement of the implementation of the measure “Establishment of a media fact-checking mechanism and a public data publication system” led to a new cycle of disinformation campaigns by fringe media and actors in 2022 regarding fact-checking. Among the unfounded accusations was the claim that the state was giving “45 million euros, or rather our euros” to Faktograf to “lie to us harder and more cruelly” (1).

One of the central disinformation fringe media outlets, not only in Croatia but in the wider Western Balkans region, the portal Logično.com, reacted to the announcement of the measure with a text stating a series of inaccuracies and manipulations, and it was also carried by some other fringe media outlets (1, 2):

“We have written many times about the harmfulness of so-called “fact-checkers.” These are organised groups of foreign mercenaries who have copyright on the truth, and support only the official position of the regime, while all other opinions are removed from social networks. The Croatian “fact-check” organisation is funded by the American Embassy and American associations, who use their money to impose their view of the world on us.

As an example of their harmfulness, we can give the origin of Covid, for which the official position of the American regime was that it was created naturally. Therefore, Faktograf removed all other opinions from the public space, and the portal Logično received warnings and its reach on Facebook was reduced. In the meantime, the “official truth” has changed, the virus is now claimed to have originated in a laboratory, and now they are removing all different opinions. If you do not understand why this kind of censorship is dangerous for democracy, look at the example of any totalitarian regime.

And now, when it has been proven that they have caused damage, and when people are angry with them, instead of cancelling Faktograf, Croatia is doing the opposite – it will develop its own network of “fact-checkers” in order to intensify censorship even more, and of course everything will be paid for by the European Union, which also “recommended” this move. (Recommendation – read: dictation). The EU is slowly but surely turning into a totalitarian dictatorship in which the right to opinion and freedom of speech hardly exists anymore.”

Liberal.hr published an article by Hrvoje Marković entitled “The Croatian government is investing an additional 45 million kuna in more powerful disinformation of citizens,” in which he points out, among other things: “more and more people are mocking the editorial staff for such choices and leaving ‘Grinning Squinting Face’ reactions. Some ‘experts’ think that the audience is laughing so sociopathically at other people’s suffering, they don’t realize that readers are actually mocking them and such comments by the editorial boards.” Regarding Faktograf.hr, Marković makes manipulative and inaccurate claims such as: “Faktograf, the only fact-checker in Croatia that cooperates with Facebook, also presented incorrect data, which is why it has repeatedly published requests for corrections based on the Media Act.”

The fringe portal Epoha.com.hr commented on the published public call, promoting the narrative of censorship and comparing the work of a fact-checker to that of a guard at Auschwitz (a comparison we have heard before):

“It is not the slightest problem to point out misinformation and prove its inaccuracy. The problem is that it will probably be a network that will serve big tech corporations or the state to punish the unfit. At the very thought of it, I have to say: There is no money for which I could be part of any repressive system….The system does not employ them in such places because they are particularly qualified or because they have done something great or valuable in their lives, but because only such people are willing to do such dirty jobs, and we all know what kind of people they are. People without a conscience, with a thick face….Not everyone could have worked as a guard in Auschwitz. Many people’s conscience would not allow them to do such a job (note: if such a thing can even be called a job, because we all know what it is about), regardless of the salary… Let’s remember that not everyone can really implement censorship and persecute journalists who dare to express unsuitable opinions, and we will immediately feel easier and we will begin to perceive the censor’s actions as worthy of praise to our work and a valuable guide for all who seek the truth in the times we live in, because they suppress the truth and everything they suppress needs to be further investigated.”

The author of this text is Nenad Šiprak, who according to publicly available information is also the Vice President of the Osviješteni association and the Admin. of the public Facebook group Osviješteni građani. This Facebook group has often been the scene of the spread of various misinformation.

The Epoha portal will accompany the second public call for the measure “Establishment of a system for verifying the accuracy of information” announced in 2023 with an article equipped with a photograph that says Faktograf shows part of the head of former Editor-in-Chief Petar Vidov, and contains a picture of an injection and dollar bills, and the text itself ends with the sentence: “Here is a new opportunity for the greedy and predators from Faktograf to, of course, if anyone doubts, once again get the “Judas’ shillings” for hunting down alleged disinformation.” Faktograf did not participate in that public call at all.

Six months have passed since the start of the implementation of the project: “Facts about the Climate Crisis – klima.faktograf.hr” in September 2023 until the launch of the Climate Portal. During this period, a study tour and training were organised within the project to strengthen the newsroom’s capacity, an analysis of climate disinformation was prepared, the portal was designed, and a system for entering and publishing content was established and tested. In addition, several articles were prepared for publication simultaneously with the launch of the Climate Portal, including a series on the history of climate change denial.

At the beginning of March, announcements about the launch of the Climate Portal began via social media, while the public was informed through a press release about the launch of the portal on 20 March 2024. The announcement was carried by certain media outlets and actors active in the field of climate and climate change.

Before we start with a detailed description of the chronology of events, it should be said that, in this case, it was about two lines of attack that were not necessarily coordinated, but certainly connected in the narratives.

The first line of attack concerned anonymous profiles on social networks, primarily Facebook, and users of social networks themselves, who trolled the Climate Portal’s posts with “Grinning Squinting Face” emojis (in Croatian: Hahači) often resorting to insults and threats in comments and via private messages. They also carried out an action of sending emails with complaints to the Ministry of Culture and Media and the Agency for Electronic Media. The main actors of this line of attack are the anonymous Facebook profiles/pages Capakova zamjenica and Rubni portal, the Facebook group Osviješteni građani and individuals Nenad Bakić, Mario Nakić and Hana Matić.

The Grinning Squinting Face appears to be an expression of laughter and amusement, how it was originally intended to be, but its use often has a political message and a completely different purpose, as stated by Hrvoje Marković in the text published on the Liberal.hr portal that we quoted earlier.

In addition to the “thumbs up” or “like” emoji, Facebook introduced additional emojis in 2016 that users can use to react to posts – a heart, a Grinning Squinting Face, a “wow”, a sad emoji, and an angry one. Later, it also introduced the care emoji. A series of studies since then have looked at how users use these emojis to express not only emotions, but also political views. While the initial idea was that the Grinning Squinting Face expresses laughter, it quickly became clear that it, just like the “crying with laughter” emoji, is used to mock posts that the user disagrees with or finds ridiculous.

A large number of Grinning Squinting Faces on posts can also send a message to other users that the content is ridiculous and that a significant number of people disagree with it. Journalist George Driver, in his text, a screenshot of which will be shared by some of the actors in this case study, says that the Grinning Squinting Face has become an emoji of ridicule and a weapon of trolls in the era of culture wars: The Covid-19 pandemic, climate change, inequality, but also death are frequent subjects of ridicule. The use of this emoji as a symbol of ridicule and sarcasm cannot be attributed only to the political right, because, as the research has determined, it has also been used for the purpose of mocking news about the deaths of unvaccinated people, i.e., rejoicing over the deaths of people who refuse vaccination. The Grinning Squinting Face is not the only emoji that expresses ambivalent feelings and is used to show political opinion. One of them is the “wow” emoji, which is often used as a negative expression (i.e., disbelief instead of enthusiasm) when it comes to political news.

The second line refers to posts about the Climate Portal on fringe media and on the profiles of influential people, with an emphasis on the MP of the conservative political party Most Marin Miletić and the controversial entrepreneur Nenad Bakić. Through their posts, a public narrative was created and gave impetus to the action of users. This line certainly used the online campaign with Grinning Squinting Face and the moderation of the Climate Portal Facebook page itself for the purpose of spreading the desired narratives about the Climate Portal, with Nenad Bakić directly encouraging users to write complaints to the Ministry of Culture and Media and the Agency for Electronic Media. The main actors of this line of attack are the fringe media Narod.hr and Liberal.hr (together with its Editor-in-Chief Mario Nakić), the anonymous website Crodex.net, the MP of Most Marin Miletić, and Nenad Bakić.

Table 1: Overview of the key actors

When it comes to moderation policy, it should be noted that during the attack, the Climate Portal decided not to tolerate trolling on its Facebook page. As it was clear that this was a targeted multi-day trolling of every post on Facebook with the aim of mocking and ridiculing the work of the newsroom, which is clearly visible from the posts and comments that we will present in this case study, the users who participated in this were blocked. The rules of conduct on the Facebook page were published on 30 March, and the largest number of Grinning Squinting Faces came after that. This represented a departure from the previous moderation policy of Faktograf.hr’s social media, where blocking users was used extremely rarely and offensive and hateful comments and threats were generally hidden, but users were still able to comment on posts. In the long term, this approach proved to be ineffective because it discouraged users who were interested in a topic from commenting, and left the entire comments section to users who mainly trolled, threatened and/or insulted. The goal of changing the moderation policy on the Climate Portal is first and foremost to open up space for those who are interested in a constructive discussion about climate and climate change. Although this approach was manipulatively used by the actors of the attack in order to further motivate users to take action, massively encouraged trolling and insulting in comments is certainly not something that falls under freedom of speech and expression of opinion, but was used exclusively to defame the target it was aimed at. The Climate Portal is of the opinion that the above should not be tolerated. It should also be noted that, after this initial situation, in subsequent posts that received a number of Grinning Squinting Faces and caused controversy – including the denial of climate change and conspiracy theories – the option of blocking users was rarely used, only in cases of open insults, hate speech and interruption of constructive exchange of opinions and discussion.

The narratives that were used in the attack on the Climate Portal were largely taken from the disinformation campaign that was carried out against Faktograf during the coronavirus pandemic or that we have already detected as being used against the media, with the upgrading to narratives related to climate and climate change.

We can divide them into three types of narratives – the narrative about fact-checking as ideologically biased censorship, the financial narrative, and the narrative about climate science as unreliable, which is very common when talking about climate change.

A narrative about fact-checking as ideologically biased censorship

This disinformation narrative was developed during the coronavirus pandemic by extremist, mainly right-wing political groups, anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists, and is primarily based on disinformation related to the implementation of Meta’s Third Party Fact-Checking programme, which then spread to all specialised fact-checking media, whether they participated in that programme or not. It should be noted here that the Climate Portal is not part of Meta’s programme, but is exclusively Faktograf.hr.

And while fact-checkers around the world have been persistently explaining how the programme works for the last five years and how fact-checkers do not have the ability to decide how Facebook’s algorithms are programmed and when they remove certain content, Meta itself took the side of disinformation actors after the victory of Donald Trump in the US elections. With this twist, the company decided to support this narrative and exposed fact-checking organisations to additional attacks, despite the fact that the narrative about censorship has no basis in reality.

On 7 January, 2025, Mark Zuckerberg published a video in which, among other things, he declared that the programme in the US led to censorship and that the fact-checkers were politically biased.

At this point, it is necessary to repeat everything that the international fact-checking community said in its open letter on Meta’s decision, and what it repeated throughout the duration of the programme:

1. Meta has required all fact-checking partners to meet strict standards of impartiality, certified by the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). This meant no affiliation with political parties or candidates, no advocacy of policies, and implied an unwavering commitment to objectivity and transparency. Each media organisation undergoes a rigorous annual review, including independent assessments and peer reviews. Meta has consistently praised these standards for their rigor and effectiveness. Just a year earlier, Meta extended its Third Party Fact-Checking programme to Threads.
2. Meta has never given fact-checkers the ability or authority to remove content or user accounts. Social media users have often blamed and harassed fact-checkers for Meta’s actions.
3. Meta decided how content that fact-checkers deemed inaccurate would be ranked or flagged. Several fact-checkers have suggested to Meta over the years ways to improve the flagging to make it less intrusive and to avoid even the alleged appearance of censorship, but Meta has never acted on these suggestions.
4. Meta exempted politicians and political candidates from fact-checking, even when they were spreading lies.
5. Meta has provided limited information about the programme’s results, despite repeated requests from fact-checkers and independent researchers for more information. However, independent research has shown that fact-checking labels have reduced belief in and sharing of false information, and Meta itself has repeatedly boasted about the programme’s results, stating: “We know that this program works and that people find the warning labels we apply to content after it has been reviewed by our fact-checking partner helpful.”

We can also explain once again what the word censorship means – it means banning speech, and it doesn’t mean providing additional information or reducing the reach of content. Even Elon Musk, celebrated among the actors of this case study, said in 2022 what Meta de facto did: “New Twitter policy is freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach,” or in translation, freedom of speech is not freedom of reach.

Let’s repeat once again, within Meta’s fact-checking programme, the fact-checkers added accurate information or context to the posts and did not make decisions about visibility or reach policies on Facebook. This was done exclusively by Meta, no matter how much they now pretend, in order to be at the mercy of the new US administration, that they were not the ones who decided what the programme would look like and what consequences it might have for users.

As for ideological bias, a number of studies have shown that groups close to the radical right are more inclined to present conspiracy theories, unproven, inaccurate or non-contextualized information than some other groups, and that it is logical that in quantitative terms, there is a slightly higher number of fact-checks on that side of the political spectrum. However, the politicians were excluded from Meta’s programme all the time, and their posts did not show any fact-checking labels.

All this has been said a thousand times, but it has proven to be one of the most effective and ingrained disinformation narratives, but also a tool of the extreme right for sowing distrust in the media, and the very concept of fact-checking – which is basically the foundation of all journalistic work – has become synonymous for censorship. At the same time, the same actors who shout “Censors” are actually restricting freedom of speech and expression, including academic freedom, as we are currently seeing in the USA.

Financial narrative

Financial narratives have appeared in the attack on Faktograf before, but while previously it was about claims that Faktograf and its newsroom were “foreign mercenaries”, that is, that Faktograf was financed by global powers and states like the USA, in the case of the Climate Portal, it is about financing with grants from European funds allocated by Croatian state institutions, which then changed the basic narrative.

As we already wrote in the case study “Attacks on Croatian weekly Novosti: “Light ‘em up or shut ‘em down””, in the case of public sources of funding for the media, the narratives are shaped somewhat differently, although in essence they remain the same – the one who receives funds outside of the market supposedly works for the interests of the one who gives those funds.

In this case, the underlying narrative is that Faktograf, or rather its Climate Portal, is a media outlet of Prime Minister Andrej Plenković. It is worth mentioning the paradox that often arises in this type of argumentation. Namely, Andrej Plenković is the President of a centre-right party and is already in his third term leading a government that positions itself as a centre-right government, while Faktograf is in parallel continuously accused of belonging to the ideological left and even of Marxism. And while some individuals try to get out of this mind twist by using conspiracy theories about hidden higher interests (Nakić, Bakić), others will simply put everyone in the same conspiracy basket of “global elites” among whom there is no real difference anyway (Miletić).

Financial narratives related to the media typically include the claim that the media should not depend on state funding and should not “waste taxpayers money”, but should survive on the market.

At the same time, this narrative also suggests that, when something is financed with public funds, then these media outlets should write in the interest of the people – with those who say so assuming the right to formulate that interest. Additionally, the email campaign emphasised the view that, if something is financed with public funds, then citizens and social media users are allowed to do anything, including trolling, insulting and threatening those who receive public money.

The “Climate science is unreliable” narrative

Within the framework of the project “Facts about the climate crisis” through which the Climate Portal was launched, an analysis of the climate disinformation that Faktograf.hr exposed during its work was made. For the purposes of this analysis, the CARDS taxonomy was used as presented in the paper “Computer-assisted classification of contrarian claims about climate change”, written by Travis G. Coan, Constantine Boussalis, John Cook & Mirjam O. Nanko, published on 16 September 2021 in Science Reports 11 .

That taxonomy lists five key climate disinformation narratives:

• Global warming is not happening
• Human Greenhouse Gases are not causing global warming 
• Climate impacts are not bad 
• Climate solutions won’t work 
• Climate movement/science is unreliable

As stated in the analysis “Manufacturing Doubt and Persecuting Science”, the disinformation climate narrative “Climate Science is Unreliable” includes claims that there is no scientific consensus on climate change and claims that climate science is corrupt and biased. It also includes conspiracy theories that science is being used to falsify data to falsely demonstrate that climate change exists and/or that science, with the help of advanced technology, is producing extreme weather events to create the illusion of climate change. It is claimed that powerful elites who want to control the world are behind this. This disinformation narrative also includes claims that are engaged in defamation of various actors specialised in the issue of climate change, such as international institutions, the media, activists and politicians. One of the common tactics of defamation is to highlight their alleged hypocrisy if, for example, they use air transport for travel, which we had the opportunity to see in the example presented in this case study.

We saw almost all the elements of this narrative in the case of the attack on the Climate Portal, and it was perhaps best summed up by Nenad Bakić in his survey in which he asked his followers who they trust less – fact-checkers or scientists.

As also determined in the analysis, there is a significant overlap between actors who spread disinformation during the coronavirus pandemic and those who now express some form of climate change denial or use disinformation narratives about climate change. The common basis of disinformation narratives related to the pandemic and climate change is the alleged deprivation of citizens’ liberties for the sake of policies to combat the pandemic, i.e. climate change, and the change of “our way of life”. We can illustrate this with theses that say: during the pandemic, they locked us in our houses so we wouldn’t get infected, now they will lock us in 15-minute cities to save the climate; before they made us wear masks, now they will make us eat insects.

What we additionally notice is that the view that climate change is a real and urgent problem is starting to be called “green ideology” and is starting to be associated with the so-called gender ideology and the great replacement conspiracy theory, turning into a unifying “Woke” conspiracy theory – a dystopian vision according to which European and Western elites and major political parties, with the support of scientists and the media, will confine the population within 15-minute cities, take away their cars, force them to ride bicycles, influence children to change gender, force people to eat insects, allow dark-skinned men to rape white women and, in general, they seek to destroy Christian culture, the traditional heterosexual family and “our way of life” based on fossil fuels.

After April 2024, the attacks decreased, but the actors mentioned in this case study took even the slightest reason to spread disinformation narratives and attacks on Faktograf, and now the Climate Portal. Some political actors continued to use the implementation of the measure “Establishment of a system for verifying the accuracy of information” to address the Ministry of Culture and Media and the Government of the Republic of Croatia, spreading the narrative of fact-checking as censorship and often of Faktograf as a symbol of that censorship.

One of the actors of this case study, the Editor-in-Chief of the Liberal.hr portal Mario Nakić, after the parliamentary elections in May 2024, repeated speculations about the connection between Andrej Plenković, the European Union and Faktograf via his personal profile and the Liberal.hr portal page. He went so far as to claim that the Minister of Culture and Media, Nina Obuljen Koržinek, would remain a minister in the new government of Prime Minister Plenković only because “Faktograf is financed through that ministry”:

“I think the only thing that matters to Plenković is to keep the Ministry of Culture because he finances Faktograf through that ministry. Nina Obuljen Kožinek, who won fewer votes than Ava Karabatić in the elections, must remain a minister. I still can’t figure out why Plenković is scratching his head to preserve the public funding of the communists, maybe someone in Brussels is holding him in check or they have given him something big. Or maybe it’s theirs at heart. Well, I really don’t know the reasons, but what is happening, what we see, what is public, shows that I was right all along. There is a nasty and rotten symbiosis between Plenković and the journalist mafia.”

In the comments, he claims that by launching the Climate Portal, Faktograf is only carrying out Plenković’s will, and he responds to the comment that Faktograf criticises the government, so his theory is not a particularly logical one: 

“In “peacetime” time – yes. And that’s how they help him, actually. But when a crisis comes and people screw up, look at how the media behaves.” One of the users of the X network comments: “The payments for climate propaganda started right through the Ministry of Culture. Which means that the payments for corona and vax propaganda probably went the same way. Such an important agency cannot just be left to someone unsuitable.”

He shared a post on the same topic the next day:

“What did I say about the Ministry of Culture, aka the ATM of the left? It’s the most important department for him and his Nina has to be there. Even if 10 more reports are filed against her, and she didn’t win a single vote in the elections. Bombs can fall, the country can open up, Nina has to be there so that Faktograf gets its money. And that’s it!”

Nenad Bakić also continues to write periodically about both Faktograf and the Climate Portal. For example, in November, he published a screenshot of the text “Donald Trump is a climate catastrophe” along with a photo of the Editor-in-Chief with the comment: “Are you aware that the state pays a failed Croatian studies student but an expert in epidemiology and climate to publish such things on ‘their’ (i.e. ours – financed with our money) ‘portal’?”

As we have already stated in the chapter on narratives, Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement about the termination of Meta’s fact-checking programme in the USA caused the repetition of disinformation narratives about fact-checking and then, as a result, attacks on Faktograf and the Climate Portal.

In the weeks after 7 January, Faktograf recorded texts on almost all the portals mentioned in this case study – Narod.hr , Liberal.hr , Logično.com and Crodex.net , which once again repeat disinformation narratives about fact-checking, this time with the arguments of the company that launched the programme and manages it.

Nor did other actors such as Nenad Bakić, Mario Nakić , Capakova zamjenica and Rubni portal fail to refer to the cancellation of Meta’s fact-checking programme in the US, after which Faktograf.hr and the Climate Portal received a series of messages (in comments on social networks and in inboxes) containing hate speech, insults and threats.

The Ministry of Culture and Media also made a statement about the cancellation of Meta’s fact-checking programme in the US, noting that “the cancellation of the fact-checking program itself could cause even greater damage to society by the removal of restrictions on many forms of speech that Meta has so far considered harmful, and this could consequently open the door to harassment, bullying and other harmful speech on Meta’s platforms.” 

In response to the Ministry, Most issued a statement in which he points out: “It is scandalous that the line ministry de facto advocates censorship and provides unconditional support to the notorious Faktograf, which was clearly shown to have limited its reach exclusively to political dissidents. This includes those who today oppose the woke agenda, illegal migration and the uncontrolled import of foreign labor, as well as those who yesterday fought against unanimity during the coronavirus pandemic. Among those who Faktograf limited the reach and against whom he paid for ads on social networks and we, as a political party.” And again ignoring the fact that politicians and political parties are excluded from Meta’s fact-checking programme, so their reach on the platform could not have anything to do with Meta’s fact-checking programme.

The debate did not go unnoticed in the Croatian Parliament. Most’s MP Nikola Grmoja asked Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on 16 January about his opinion on Meta’s abolition of fact-checking, in which he reiterates that Faktograf censored dissenters and calls Faktograf the Ministry of Truth. Andrej Plenković said in his response that the measure implemented by the Ministry of Culture and Media is good because it has encouraged the launch of more fact-checking media.

In regard to the narrative of alleged censorship promoted through the implementation of the measure “Establishment of a system for verifying the accuracy of information”, Robert Tomljenović from the Council for Electronic Media comments as follows: “We consider this narrative to be completely unfounded, that is, the spread of this narrative is about the spread of disinformation and very often the misuse of the term freedom of expression, which is used in a wrong and manipulative context. In the project “Establishment of a system for verifying the accuracy of information”, financed as part of the NPOO measure, there is no censorship whatsoever, in fact, the idea of the project is the decentralization, not the centralization, of the information verification system and the encouragement of the creation of a larger number of hubs for detecting fake news, disinformation and misinformation. In short, the project encourages the democratization of the information verification system. In the project, we connected the scientific community, the civil sector and the media, thus establishing the foundation for ensuring competence, professional basis and credible verification of the accuracy of information. And the fact that specialized thematic fact-checkers within the project completely independently conduct verification of the accuracy of information speaks of this complete democratization of the information verification system. Of course, the selected fact-checkers must adhere to the prescribed Principles of Work, or professional standards of fact-checking, which should guarantee the credibility of the process. Work on verifying the accuracy of information in the future will be even more important, due to the information environment in which we live and the further development of technologies. Therefore, we must reiterate that fact-checking is not censorship but a socially important activity, which is not in contradiction with freedom of expression, which is a dangerous narrative that is emerging more and more often.”

The Climate Portal announced the start of its work on 4 March, 2024, through posts on social media. As expected, the posts on Facebook had the greatest reach, given that Faktograf has the largest number of followers on that social network, which remains the most important social media in Croatia.

The attack on the Climate Portal follows previous attacks on Faktograf, and is based on a narrative that was promoted by fringe media outlets before the launch of the Climate Portal, claiming that the Government of the Republic of Croatia, through the implementation of the measure “Establishment of a system for verifying the accuracy of information”, financed by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NPOO), is actually financing censorship directed by Faktograf. Additionally, the transition of disinformation actors from the coronavirus pandemic period to topics related to climate change has ensured the existence of an ecosystem within which it is relatively easy to raise tensions and launch attacks.

The key actors in the attack on the Climate Portal are the controversial entrepreneur Nenad Bakić, the anonymous Facebook pages Capakova zamjenica and Rubni portal, the Facebook group Osviješteni građani, and the fringe media Narod.hr and Liberal.hr.

Nenad Bakić mostly uses his Facebook profile for his public activities, which is followed by more than 61,000 other profiles. The Facebook profile Capakova zamjenica is followed by more than 12,000 profiles, and the Facebook page Rubni portal is followed by slightly more than 2,400 user profiles. It is not known what proportion of these followers are real people.

According to data from the readership monitoring platform Similarweb, Narod.hr has been among the 20 most read news portals in Croatia for a long period and had more than 3 million views in February 2025. Liberal.hr had just over 120,000 views in the same month.

The construction of the narrative around the Climate Portal and fact-checking as ideologically biased censorship was once again supported by MP Marin Miletić and his political party Most. Marin Miletić is one of the most active Croatian politicians on social media, with more than 130,000 followers on Facebook alone, while he has more than 33,800 followers on Instagram, and almost 6,000 on X.

From early March to approximately mid-April, we found a total of 32 original text and image posts from the attackers on Facebook pages and profiles on X, which garnered more than 9,340 reactions, including emoji reactions, comments, and shares. Two-thirds of the posts were made in the first seven days of April.

There is no conclusive evidence that these announcements were coordinated, but it is a fact that a significant part of the mentioned actors follow each other and comment on the announcements related to the Climate Portal. These actors came of age during the coronavirus pandemic, and they extended their opposition to epidemiological measures and, at the very least, scepticism related to vaccination to some forms of climate change denial, and began to spread disinformation narratives about climate change. Therefore, in this case, along with the disinformation narrative about fact-checking, there is also a disinformation narrative about climate science as unreliable, along with an additional financial narrative that often appears in attacks on the media.

The actors dominating the posts and reactions collected are the Facebook profile Capakova zamjenica and Nenad Bakić, who published 13 posts that collected more than 7,000 reactions. They are followed by the Facebook page Rubni portal and Liberal.hr, including its Editor-in-Chief Mario Nakić, with a total of 9 posts that collected around 1,000 reactions.

The remaining actors have a smaller number of posts, are active through comments on these same profiles, and some of them are also involved in the email campaign. However, from the data we received from the Ministry of Culture and Media, and the Agency for Electronic Media, it is evident that a minor number of real people have joined the email campaign.

On the Climate Portal side, the communication team noted about 1,500 Facebook profiles trolling with Grinning Squinting Faces, some of which left offensive or threatening comments.

From all of the above, we can conclude that there is an ecosystem of actors, emerging mainly from the time of the coronavirus pandemic, who are expanding their area of interest to the issue of climate change and climate policies.

Furthermore, it is obvious that this ecosystem has the power to encourage trolling and insulting. It should be noted that, while Nenad Bakić is very open in insulting anyone he targets, the anonymous profiles Capakova Zamjenica and Rubni portal mostly use some form of sarcasm and leave it to their followers to do the open insulting.

According to the number of reactions and profiles that trolled the Climate Portal, it could be concluded that the actors of this case study have some support from the public, but judging by the data we received from the Ministry of Culture and Media and the Agency for Electronic Media about received email complaints, things are significantly more complex.

The lack of citizen engagement in the email campaign may suggest that it is difficult to encourage citizens to turn what appears to be harmless online entertainment and trolling into more concrete action. Also, anonymous profiles also participated in the trolling, and it is logical to assume that the individuals behind these user profiles do not want to expose themselves to state and public authorities. In addition, there is a possibility, but for which we cannot provide sufficient evidence, that bot user profiles, rather than real people, participated in the described attack on the Climate Portal Facebook page. The purpose of using bot profiles is precisely to create the impression that certain attitudes are more widespread than they actually are. This way of using bots is a widespread tactic of actors who use social networks to try to manipulate public opinion. However, proving such inauthentic coordinated behaviour was not the subject of this analysis.

Regardless of what is happening on social media, it is inevitable that fringe media played a significant role in the attacks on the Climate Portal. Although Narod.hr and Liberal.hr come from different ideological positions, they agree on many things when it comes to fact-checking and conspiracy theories about “woke ideology.” Namely, Narod.hr is a media project of the fundamentalist Catholic association “In the Name of the Family,” which we have written about in detail in previous case studies.

The anti-media narratives that certain actors spread and support, and the continuous dehumanisation of journalists, whom they consider to be ideologically biased, create a social atmosphere that can turn into open hostility and even violence. In the case of the Climate Portal, we also saw how the seemingly banal act of trolling with Grinning Squinting Faces can encourage individuals to openly insult, threaten, and create an atmosphere in which journalists are dehumanised to the point that even physical attacks are acceptable.

Finally, it should be noted that in July 2024, Melita Vrsaljko, a journalist of Faktograf.hr and the Climate Portal, was physically attacked, first in a public space, and then in her home (1, 2, 3). Although the circumstances of that attack were related to a specific case (she was attacked by people because she was filming their land, where an illegal waste dump was located), it is impossible to escape the impression that the creation of an atmosphere in which journalists are continuously demonised provides fertile ground for such situations.

That’s how some of the actors mentioned in this case study commented on the attack on Melita Vrsaljko with hateful posts on social media or through articles.

For example, on 25 July, Crodex.net publishes an article titled “Let’s remember how Faktograf journalist Melita Vrsaljko censored priests” in which they write, among other things: “We note that we strongly condemn a physical attack on any person, including Melita Vrsaljko, but this person cannot be considered a journalist but an ordinary censor who prevented the truth from reaching a large number of people…”

Liljana Benček, a blogger who has written about Faktograf’s alleged censorship on many occasions, wrote an article on 18 July titled: “Faktograf provokes and implements the worst and most corrupt censorship on the internet and then is surprised by the attack on its journalist,” in which she distances herself from physical attacks, but also finds a series of (factually unfounded) justifications for them.

Liberal.hr does not comment on the specific attack, but calls out Melta Vrsaljko for incitement. Namely, on 10 August, Liberal.hr publishes a screenshot of an article about a racist attack on an Asian woman in Split on X and wrote: “Journalistic incitement against tourists is already showing results. Melita Vrsaljko from Klimatski portal announced that tourists are “consuming their resources” (which I guess means they breathe air, drink water and use electricity). Why don’t the police ever visit the journalists who planted the seeds from which such attacks sprout?”

While trolling by Grinning Squinting Faces comes and goes and can be effectively addressed with a tougher moderation policy, the consequences of incitement against independent media and the dehumanisation of journalists have very concrete consequences for the health and lives of journalists, as well as serious social consequences. Without independent and professional media, there is no one to question disinformation narratives and inaccurate information. While they cannot ban independent media, they can do what they already do with science – continuously undermine trust and encourage and increase hostility towards them, trivialising public resistance to the degradation of media freedoms and the abolition of public funding for the media. It seems like a grim prognosis, but the last few months in the US show us that it is realistic.