BIRN Kosovo has relied on the Analytics.Live platform by Pikasa Analytics as a core data source for its comprehensive investigation into hate speech and disinformation during the 2025 parliamentary elections in Kosovo.

The findings were published in BIRN Kosovo’s official report Hate Speech and Disinformation During the 2025 Election in Kosovo, produced with the financial support of the European Union.

Monitoring an election under pressure

The 2025 Kosovo elections took place in a highly polarised information environment. BIRN Kosovo monitored 20 television and radio stations across Kosovo, Serbia, and Albania and reviewed more than 4,000 online articles published before, during, and after election day. The goal was to identify how disinformation, hate speech, and divisive narratives were shaping public debate and political competition.

The research confirmed that the information space was heavily affected by misleading narratives, foreign influence operations, and coordinated online amplification. Fact checkers documented at least 100 cases of disinformation on election day alone, while political parties were fined tens of thousands of euros for the use of hate speech during the campaign.

How Pikasa Analytics supported BIRN Kosovo

To track and quantify how these narratives spread, BIRN Kosovo used the Pikasa.ai and Analytics.Live platform as one of its core analytical tools. Through Pikasa’s real time monitoring of online media and social platforms, BIRN analysts were able to systematically identify key narratives, trace their amplification, and measure their visibility across the digital space.

According to the report methodology, Pikasa Analytics was used to track 45 disinformation and hate speech narratives and to analyse over 4,000 online publications, allowing researchers to assess how often specific messages appeared, how they evolved, and how widely they circulated.

This enabled BIRN Kosovo to move beyond anecdotal evidence and produce a data driven map of the election information environment, linking political statements, media coverage, and social media reactions into a single analytical framework.

Turning political rhetoric into measurable data

One of the report’s most striking examples of data driven monitoring comes from the analysis of political rhetoric. When Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti used dehumanising language against his political opponents during the campaign, Pikasa Analytics detected 256 online articles reacting to that single statement across Kosovo’s digital media ecosystem.

This type of insight demonstrates how Analytics.Live transforms political speech into measurable signals, showing not only what was said but how it reverberated through media, social platforms, and public discourse.

By linking speeches, television broadcasts, online portals, and social media posts into one searchable and comparable dataset, Pikasa enabled BIRN Kosovo to quantify the real impact of inflammatory language and disinformation.

Supporting independent journalism with technology

BIRN Kosovo’s use of Analytics.Live highlights the growing role of AI powered media monitoring in investigative journalism and election observation. By combining human editorial judgment with large scale automated analysis, the platform helped BIRN detect patterns that would be impossible to identify manually.

This included tracing how foreign state backed media, anonymous social accounts, and domestic political actors interacted to push divisive narratives into Kosovo’s public sphere, often across language and platform boundaries.

The result was one of the most detailed and data rich election monitoring reports ever produced in Kosovo, grounded in verified digital evidence rather than speculation.

A model for election integrity monitoring

The Kosovo case shows how advanced media intelligence platforms like Analytics.Live by Pikasa can support civil society, journalists, and international organisations in safeguarding democratic processes.

By providing real time access to cross media data, narrative tracking, and influence mapping, Pikasa Analytics helped ensure that BIRN Kosovo’s findings were not only rigorous but transparent and verifiable.

As disinformation and coordinated influence operations continue to shape elections across Europe and beyond, the Kosovo experience demonstrates how technology and journalism can work together to defend the integrity of public debate.