Serbia's Anonymous Graft Portal Hit by Attacks
The platform for anonymous reports against arrogant officials is running at full speed amid claims of cyberattacks from abroad, while the opposition sees it as a way to bypass institutions.
- The kosibreti.rs portal has been live since Friday, July 10, promising full anonymity with no registration and no logging of IP addresses.
- President Aleksandar Vucic said the site received 429 reports and roughly 5.7 million clicks in its first 24 hours.
- Officials claim there were large-scale attempts to take the platform down, partly from abroad.
- The opposition and critical media dismiss the portal as another attempt to bypass existing institutions.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said that the portal for anonymous reports against arrogant officials, called “Who Are You?”, received 429 reports and logged around 5.7 million clicks in its first 24 hours. The platform, hosted at kosibreti.rs and built on the GlobaLeaks software, went live on Friday, July 10, with a promise of full anonymity, no registration and no logging of IP addresses.
According to the president, the wave of submissions came alongside major attempts to overload and take down the platform, part of which, he said, originated abroad. Through the portal, citizens can report abuse of office, corruption, bribery and influence peddling, and the government presents the project as a tool offering maximum protection for the identity of those who file reports.
How the anonymous reporting platform works
The portal is built on GlobaLeaks, an open-source tool used by journalists and whistleblower-protection groups around the world. The system is designed so that a person filing a report does not need to leave a name, email address or phone number, and according to the official description no IP addresses are logged either. From what we understand, that layer of anonymity is the central argument the government uses to encourage citizens to come forward.
The scope is precisely defined: arrogant conduct by public officials, corruption, abuse of authority and influence peddling. The figure of 5.7 million clicks cited by the president reflects the attention the portal drew online in a single day, though clicks are not the same as verified reports. The path from 429 logged submissions to concrete proceedings before the competent authorities is, by nature, considerably longer.
The claims of cyberattacks have sharpened the tone around the project. Officials read the attempts to bring down the site as an effort to strip citizens of a reporting channel, while critics note that the assertions of attacks from abroad have so far not been backed by any independent technical analysis.
Does the portal strengthen or bypass institutions?
The opposition and part of the critical media see “Who Are You?” differently. To them it is another attempt to bypass existing institutions, from the prosecution service to the Anti-Corruption Agency, which already have a legal mandate to receive and process reports. The argument is that a parallel channel run under the executive branch blurs the line between who receives a report and who is supposed to act on it.
Supporters of the project counter that the existing institutional routes feel slow and uncertain to many citizens, and that a low barrier to filing plus guaranteed anonymity can surface cases that would otherwise go unreported. The key question is not how many reports arrived on the first day, but what happens to them next: whether they land on the desk of an independent prosecutor or in the drawer of a political calculation.
The heart of the dispute, then, is not the numbers but trust. Until it becomes clear how the reports are carried through to the end and who controls that process, the portal will be proof of resolve against corruption for some and a political spectacle for others. Do you believe an anonymous report through a state portal can change something that the regular institutions have failed to address for years?
