Suspected Government #SelfieMacedonia Campaign Backfires  · Global Voices
Temjana Popovska

A Facebook campaign with the hashtag #SelfieMacedonia was launched in March 2014 and Macedonian social media users now suspect that the country's government is behind it all.
Bouts of young social media users from Macedonia, individually or in groups, have been taking photos of themselves, typically called “selfies”, and sharing them on Facebook with the hashtag. None of this would be unusual were it not for the peculiar fact that national monuments and buildings constructed ​​by the current government are in most of these photos.
The Youth Force Union, a youth group of the ruling party in Macedonia, began taking these “selfie” photos that sometimes include the ruling party’s flag and logo. The hashtag aroused great interest and many users began commenting these features on social networks, indicating suspicion that the campaign is being staged by the ruling party’s headquarters.
In response to the “selfies” with the monuments and political symbols, an even greater number of photo-montage images can be found on Facebook now, some depicting government officials attending current events.
A widely circulated photoshopped image showing a Macedonian government official and US President Obama, part of the response of Macedonian social media users to the #SelfieMacedonia campaign.
A1on.mk commented on the campaign in a recent article and included several of these images.