Türkiye: Big tech should protect free speech and resist state censorship - Article

Ahead of Türkiye’s municipal elections on 31 March 2024, 22 rights groups and journalists’ organisations jointly call on social media platforms to uphold the free expression rights of their users and resist state censorship. They should also fully disclose all government requests to restrict accounts or content, and be transparent about informal government pressure to restrict content on their platforms.

Hungary: Draft Sovereignty Protection Act poses fresh threat to independent media - Article

OBCT joins MFRR partners in drawing the attention of the European Union about the chilling impact of the new Hungarian bill on independent media

Media freedom at a crossroads: Journalism in Poland faces uncertain future ahead of election - Article

MFRR partners organised a mission in Poland to assess the challenges that Polish media face ahead of the parliamentary elections scheduled on the 15th of October 2023. The main findings and a set of recommendations in their newly published report

Trudeau against Facebook: social media, copyright, and information - Article

In protest against the new Canadian law that requires social media to pay news organisations every time a user shares a link, Facebook has blocked access to news portals, earning the condemnation of Prime Minister Trudeau. In Europe, meanwhile, new regulations are on their way on the removal of content, advertising, and disinformation

By Paola Rosà

Originally published by OBCT in ENG and ITA

Hungary: Media freedom groups welcome EU court referral over Klubrádió frequency - Article

Move by EU Commission is belated but important signal it will use legal toolbox to defend independent media

Albania: MFRR urges government to scrap new Media and Information Agency - Article

MFRR partners express concern over a new Media and Information Agency that would centralise control over the government's public relations within a single entity. Until greater safeguards can be established to ensure the agency operates in a fair and transparent manner, we urge the government to cancel its establishment

Turkey: growing digital censorship compounds press freedom crisis - Article

We joined ten other organisations in a mission to Turkey led by IPI. While the government refused the invitation for a meeting, journalists, civil society representatives, MPs and other institutions denounced an ever-worsening environment for Turkey's remaining independent press

Poland: open letter to Members of Parliament in defence of media freedom - Article

OBCT joined a coalition of press freedom and journalism organizations in urgently calling on members of the Sejm, the lower house of Poland’s legislature, to oppose a draft bill that would dramatically accelerate media capture in Poland. Here the text of the letter:

Albania: concern after government ally elected to head the Audiovisual Media Authority - Article

The Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) expresses deep concern about the future impartiality and independence of Albania’s Audiovisual Media Authority (AMA) following the election of a close associate of the ruling Socialist Party to head the media regulator

MFRR raises concerns over increasing meddling in independence of Czech public broadcaster - Article

The partner organisations of the Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) express their serious concern over the latest efforts by the ruling ANO party and its allies to further politicise the oversight body of the Czech public broadcaster.

We are worried that the slow-motion yet obvious efforts to stack the Council of the Czech TV (ČT Council) are ultimately aimed at the erosion of the public television’s independence and politically-motivated realignment of its news and opinion programming