maandag 1 januari 2018

2017: The year in which Europe lost its press freedom


The year 2017, was a year in which an essential aspect of European culture disappeared: Our press freedom

Of course things started earlier, with several journalists and reporters already needing protection against religious fanatics for example, but active forms of state controlled censorship were extremely rare.

This changed in Germany: Since the 1st of October when a new censorship law in Germany became effective. The new law requires Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms to censor the content of its users according to German law.

Germany is Europe’s most populous country and the law has large consequences for a news channel like Voice of Europe. This week we received two emails that some of our tweets would be censored in Germany. One tweet was a public quote of a Russian EU ambassador on twitter. He said:

“The migrant crisis is a time bomb and will destroy Europe’s high living standards”