Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low, study says – Columbia Journalism Review

According to a new report from the UK-based charity Article 19 (named for one of the clauses in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights), freedom of expression has reached a ten-year low globally, as a result of what the report calls digital authoritarianism and threats against journalists. Governments in a number of countries have been increasing online surveillance and cracking down on content and behavior that indicates dissent, the report says. The survey notes that while there were some improvements in the overall freedom-of-expression environment around the world between 2008 and 2013, these gains were eroded in the five subsequent years. According to Article 19s analysis, more than sixty-five countries with a combined population of over five billion people have seen their freedom of expression decline over the past decade.

The report looked at what it argues are five key metrics of freedom of expression: 1) Civic space, which looks at indicators related to the ability of individuals and civil society organizations to associate and be active; 2) Digital, which measures online censorship and freedom of online discussion and covers internet shutdowns by governments, censorship of social media, and online content moderation; 3) Media, which measures factors such as government censorship and self-censorship, laws that limit online expression, etc.; 4) Protection, which measures threats to the safety of journalists and other communicators and human rights defenders, including murders and imprisonment, as well as judicial harassment; and 5) Transparency, which looks at whether laws are transparent and enforced in a predictable manner and whether there are effective oversight bodies, impartial public administration, and so on.

Legal threats to freedom of expression continue in a number of countries, the report says, from broad and ambiguous national security laws to laws that unduly limit online expression, as well as new frameworks that delegate blocking and removal to online platforms, which often do so without transparency or accountability. That last comment is clearly directed at Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, which have been under fire for some time for their poorly communicated and often haphazard attempts to block hate speech and other bad behavior. According to Article 19, media freedom and digital free expression are both lower than they were a decade ago in every region of the world except the Middle East and North Africa. Executive director Thomas Hughes said that many of the threats are not newstate violence, judicial harassment, etc.but the group has also seen an increase in governments using digital technology to surveill [sic] their citizens, restrict content and shut down communications.

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The organization said the number of alerts received by the Council of Europe about harassment and violence directed toward journalists has almost doubled every year since 2015, when the Councils alert program was launched. In 2018, ninety-nine journalists were killedtwenty-one more than in 2017. At the end of 2018, more than two hundred and fifty journalists were in prison (also up from the year before) and more than 10 percent of those were being held on false news charges. According to Article 19s analysis, the most alerts about harassment and violence came from Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and France, and more than half of the alerts cited the state as the source of the threat. The report also notes that 2018 saw a clear trend toward verbal abuse and public stigmatisation of the media and individual journalists in many member states, including by elected officials and especially in the run-up to elections.

One of the biggest factors in the decline of free expression and the free press, Article 19 says, is the rise of strongman politics in a number of countries, characterized by old leaders clinging to power and new leaders coming into power by ignoring or altering a countrys constitution, relying on networks of cronyism and corruption, and promoting a muscular form of majoritarian populism, which excludes, polarises, and silences, railing against the speed-bumps of democratic institutions and limits on the exercise of power. Sounds like a number of countries we could name.

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Freedom of expression is at a ten-year low, study says - Columbia Journalism Review