Journalists facing online threats: a growing risk to democracy [Promoted content]

Ensuring journalists a safe space to conduct their activities is essential to ensure democracy’s health. Functioning democratic systems depend on the citizens’ ability to take informed decisions and to hold public authorities accountable for their actions. These essential conditions of democracy are only possible when journalists and media professionals exert their watchdog and reporting role, in a pluralistic and independent way. Any hindrance to their profession represents a threat to democracy. Indeed, repeated threats against journalist may lead to their self-censorship, causing an under-reporting of news and ultimately leading to a risk for democracy.  

Even if Europe is mainly considered as a safe place for journalism, journalists still face notable threats in doing their job. Threats to journalism intensified with the shift to the online consumption of news, since the digital environment allows users to express themselves anonymously with limited fears of consequences. In 2023, the Media Pluralism Monitor digital safety indicator indicates high risk, indicating a worsening of 4% over the past year. All EU Member States – except from Portugal and Romania – were identified as being at high or medium risk for journalists’ digital safety.

Evidences from the 2023 European News Media Forum highlighted that journalists are not only targeted by individual “trolls”, but are also victims of coordinated efforts to intimidate and discredit them on social media, since heinous content is posted within minutes from publication. Statistics demonstrate that women journalists are more exposed to online harassment than their men colleagues (with 64% women journalist experiencing it), and the attacks are usually gendered and sexualized. Disproportionate attacks are also experienced by journalists belonging to minority groups and reporting on equality issues. Moreover, women exposure increases, when multiple layered forms of discrimination and hate (e.g. racism, homophobia, ableism, sexism…) intersect. Journalists are now perceiving online aggressions as an inherent part of their profession, and, as a result, many attacks go unreported and are not captured by established monitoring systems. Online attacks often take the form of insults and threats on social media but can also entail sharing of embarrassing or cruel content about a person, account impersonation, doxing, stalking and electronic surveillance, nonconsensual use of photographs and violent threats.

These problems are explicitly tackled by the Recommendation on ensuring the protection, safety, and empowerment of journalists and other media professionals in the European Union (Recommendation 2021/1534), with specific measures dedicated to ensuring online safety and digital empowerment. They promote the establishment of collaboration mechanisms between the industry and the online platforms, through the support of Member States and public authorities active in media regulation or cybersecurity (Articles 24-25). At the same time, Article 26 generally addresses online surveillance, calling for “full implementation of the European and national legal frameworks on confidentiality of communications and online privacy”. Despite this advice, evidence from the Study on putting in practice the Recommendation (European Commission, Intellera Consulting, PwC, and Open Evidence) shows need for improvement. Overall, a formal cooperation with online platforms was identified in only six Member States (Austria, Croatia, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, and Italy) and informal cooperation in two (Malta and the Netherlands). At the same time, industry representatives criticized the Recommendation for being too generic and not binding to be effective, as in the case of Article 26.

In April 2024, the European Parliament and the Council signed the European Media Freedom Act (Regulation 2024/1083), a new legislation to protect EU journalists and press freedom from political or economic interference, already foreseen in 2021. This Regulation presents strong synergies with Recommendation 2021/1534, with the advantage of being binding for all EU Member States. To prevent very large online platforms (e.g. Facebook, X, or Instagram) from arbitrarily restricting or deleting independent media content, Members of the European Parliament made sure to establish a mechanism of exchange between media service providers and hosting platforms (Articles 18-19). Establishing and greasing these communications and filing mechanisms may break the ice for future media and platforms communications regarding journalists’ safety and online harassment prosecution. Regarding online surveillance, the European Media Freedom Act ensures the protection of journalistic sources and confidential communications. This is reflected in the authorities’ prohibition to install intrusive surveillance software on journalists’ and editors’ electronic devices – which however remains possible only on a case-by-case basis and subject to judicial authorization for the purpose of investigating serious crimes punishable by a custodial sentence. Subjects will however have the right to be informed after the surveillance has occurred and will be able to challenge it in court.

The different binding nature between the European Media Freedom Act and the Recommendation on the protection of journalists – Regulation vs Recommendation – determines a difference in the effectiveness of the two instruments. Both legislations aim for the correct functioning of EU democracy through pluralism of information. While the European Media Freedom Act focuses more on structural and regulatory aspects of the media market, some of its provisions are clearly complementary to the journalists’ protection envisioned by Recommendation 2021/1534. The European Media Freedom Act will apply from August 2025 (with some exceptions for specific articles). For this reason, it will be meaningful to reassess the state of the safety of journalists and media professionals in the European Union in the following years. The first evaluation of the European Media Freedom Act is foreseen by August 2028.