Protect the Protest. Stopping SLAPP. Defending Dissent - Support Centres

A task force of nonprofit organizations that have long dealt with SLAPP threats (threats coming from strategic lawsuits against public participation).

The organizations of "Protect the Protest" have combined their expertise and collective power to protect the free speech of public interest advocates in the United States.

They declare: "An attack on one is now an attack on all".

The task force includes experienced lawyers, journalists, communications professionals, and activists, in order to stand together as one to expose courtroom bullying, and protect the right to boldly speak the truth.

The approach is threefold:

● Building Resilience to SLAPPs - providing resources and training for civil society organizations, community leaders, journalists, and the broader public on how to best protect themselves from SLAPPs and what to do if they’re targeted. This includes a network of attorneys to defend those facing SLAPPs, especially individuals and small organizations with extremely limited resources.

● Exposing SLAPPs and Those Who File Them - drawing on their own organizations’ campaigning, communications, and legal expertise to support public interest advocates and watchdogs targeted by SLAPPs. This includes campaigning against the biggest SLAPP offenders, as well as legal defense where resources allow.

● Campaigning on Strategic Issues - When a specific SLAPP poses a broader threat to civil society or to democracy, they mobilize their collective resources to protect the rights to free speech and peaceful protest. Likewise, when opportunities arise to advance anti-SLAPP policies or laws, we engage in close collaboration with other stakeholders.

Freedom on the Net 2019 - The crisis of social media - Reports

Freedom on the Net is an annual study of Internet freedom in 65 countries around the world, covering 87% of the world’s Internet users. It tracks improvement and decline in Internet freedom conditions each year.

Albania, the controversial media law - Legal Resources

Concerns persist over the approval of the new package of amendments aimed at modifying two important laws on the Albanian media, the so-called "anti-defamation package"

Newsroom Best Practices for Addressing Online Violence against Journalists - Reports

Interviews and visits in 45 newsrooms in 5 countries about online harassment of women: based on data collected in cooperation with the Office of the Representative on Freedom of the Media of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), this study examines the protection of female journalists as part of a broader analysis of newsroom strategies to counter online attacks and harassment on all journalists

Junk News During the EU Parliamentary Elections: Lessons from a Seven-Language Study of Twitter and Facebook - Academic Sources

The study highlights that the influence of junk news is far less prominent on Twitter (4% of total sources), while the engagement of junk news is higher on Facebook, but the recipients of professional news outnumbered the former

EU Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World 2018 - Reports

The EU engaged in activities across the globe in line with the EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy (2015-2019). Focusing on a number of thematic issues, this report provides a snapshot of this commitment

Feindbild Journalist - Reports

Feindbild Journalist by ECPMF reports on the physical attacks journalists faced in Germany in 2018. It also compares the results with the analyses carried out in the previous years

Legal Responses to Online Harassment and Abuse of Journalists: Perspectives from Finland, France and Ireland - Legal Resources

This report focuses on the legal framework that applies to online harassment and abuse in three jurisdictions, namely Finland, France and Ireland. These three jurisdictions have been selected because they are some of the few jurisdictions that have seen high-profile and successful prosecutions in 2018 of individuals who had been harassing or threatening journalists online

Reducing Exposure to SLAPP Lawsuits: an Activist’s Guide - Manuals

In this booklet, prepared for the Protect the Protest task force by the Civil Liberties Defense Center, EarthRights International, the First Amendment Project, and Greenpeace USA, activists and journalist can find concrete help through comprehensive information, definitions, and questions about strategic lawsuits against public participation

Disinformation and ‘fake news’: Final Report - Reports

This is the final report of an inquiry by the Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport (DCMS) Committee of the British House of Commons into Disinformation and 'fake news', which started in September 2017. In November 2018, representatives from eight countries (Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Ireland, Latvia, and Singapore) joined the DCMS Committee to form an International Grand Committee