Bulgaria's Communications Regulation Commission (CRC) says it has received no official complaint about the satirical Facebook pages deleted on election day. The regulator told the BTA news agency that it has sent a query to Meta and is following the case.
On Saturday, the day before the vote, the Interior Ministry said the cybercrime directorate of the GDBOP, the organised crime agency, had nothing to do with the suspension of several satirical pages. The deleted pages include "Kopeykin", "Puylo" and "BG Elves".
What happened before: Interior ministry: organised crime unit not behind suspended Facebook satire pages
The opposition accused the Interior Ministry of taking the pages down, and interior minister Ivan Demerdzhiev rejected the claims. Prime minister Rumen Radev told reporters after he voted in Sunday's presidential election that the government categorically had nothing to do with the takedown.
The CRC does not regulate content on social networks. It supervises providers of intermediary services, including online platforms, and coordinates the exchange of information with EU institutions and other national bodies.
The commission says platforms must apply their own policies on election day to protect the vote. These include steps against disinformation, unregulated political ads and other risks to the integrity of the election.
Institutions and affected people can report suspected illegal content or breaches of the law to the CRC. Under the Digital Services Act, the commission reviews reports of suspected breaches of platforms' duties. If it receives a properly drawn-up complaint, it will act within its powers.
The complaint must give the exact web addresses of the content and the legal basis for the alleged breach. It also needs a reasoned statement of the factual and legal grounds, and details of how the platform responded.