The report, compiled by the Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA), analyzes the impact of AI on digital rights across 14 countries: Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The study finds that unregulated AI-powered surveillance, along with “opaque content moderation practices,” chills speech and activism and restricts media freedom. CIPESA argues that without a rights-centered approach to AI, the technology “risks becoming a powerful tool that deepens existing inequalities, facilitates authoritarian control, and fundamentally undermines democratic values and human rights across the continent.”

Digital platforms have played a powerful role in mobilizing Kenya’s youth for the protests of 2024 and 2025; yet technology, as Amnesty International reveals, has also helped the state orchestrate large-scale repression. Kenyans rallied against the Finance Bill in June 2024 and took to the streets again a year later to protest the government and lack of accountability; the largely peaceful demonstrations were suppressed violently, resulting in at least 3,000 arrests, 83 enforced disappearances, and 128 deaths. The report, based on expert observations and interviews with Kenya’s human rights defenders, examines the state’s “shadowy” tech-facilitated tactics – coordinated online harassment, surveillance, and disinformation campaigns – and complicity of companies like X and Safaricom.

As part of its ongoing project investigating the status of freedom of information (FoI) in Türkiye, the International Press Institute (IPI) launched the IPI FoI Platform to gather data on how responsive the Turkish institutions are to FoI requests. This report examines the platform’s submissions, as well as feedback from users, and reveals recurrent shortcomings affecting the right to FoI. Out of 290 FoI requests submitted to the portal since January 2025, 166 received responses, yet only 10% of them qualified as “comprehensive” and “including all requested information.” Of the requests that were rejected (69 in total; 55 still pending), the most common justifications provided were “published or publicly disclosed information and documents,” “requests requiring separate or special work,” and “practices not concerning the public.”

Addressing the reports of horrific atrocities in Sudan – streets so soaked with blood that its red was visible from satellite images – freedom of expression groups have underscored the role of information warfare in the conflict. This report, published by CDAC Network, a global alliance working to ensure people’s access to reliable information during crises, maps out how Sudan’s warring parties have used propaganda, hate speech, and connectivity blackouts to justify and fuel violence, along with obstructing effective humanitarian remedies. “Harmful information in Sudan is [...] a central instrument of the ongoing conflict,” the authors contend. “It determines who gets help, who is trusted, and who is targeted.”

Freedom of expression rapporteurs at the UN, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), the Organization of American States (OAS), and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) endorsed a declaration on freedom of expression, access to information, and media freedom amid the growing ubiquity of AI. The document outlines seven guiding principles – such as “the right to freedom of opinion and expression [...] must be embedded throughout the lifecycle of AI, including its design, development, training and deployment” – and offers recommendations to States, international organizations, the private sector, civil society, and the media.

In light of the global suppression of environmental protests through intimidation, surveillance, deprivation of liberty, violence, and even murder, these guidelines address States’ obligations under Article 3 (8) of the Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (Aarhus Convention). Compiled by Michel Forst, the first UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention, the guiding principles include: 1) Tackling the root causes of the environmental protest; 2) countering negative portrayals of environmental protesters as criminals; 3) refraining from civic space restrictions in response to civil disobedience; 4) avoiding the use of unnecessary or disproportionate measures against environmental defenders; 5) asserting that “the courts’ approach to peaceful environmental protest, including any sanctions imposed, does not contribute to the restriction of the civic space.”

This policy manual, published by the Office of the OSCE Representative for Freedom of the Media, focuses on the erosion of media freedom in today’s digital information ecosystem dominated by social media platforms, search engines, and AI companies. Based on consultations with more than 150 prominent experts in the fields of the media, civil society, policy-making, and academia, the manual offers mitigation measures and recommendations to States in three broad areas: 1) visibility – promotion of independent and public interest journalism, with robust safeguards; 2) viability – “fair remuneration, including news media bargaining codes and digital levies”; and 3) vigilance – preventing online violence against journalists.

The latest report of UN Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression Irene Khan focuses on the “paradigm shift” brought by surging authoritarianism, recent changes in the governance of speech on social media platforms, States’ responses to it, and the rapid advances of AI. “The harms, as well as the benefits, are as much the outcome of the policies and products of digital companies as they are of States’ action or inaction,” Khan writes. The report outlines the dangers of “privatization” of freedom of expression, companies’ failures in due diligence and risk mitigation, their AI innovation race without human rights guardrails, and the outsized market power of a few platforms, concluding with recommendations for governments, companies, investors, and civil society.

The Future of Free Speech (FFS), an independent, nonpartisan think tank based at Vanderbilt University, released a study on generative AI and its global impact on free expression and access to information. The report reviews the relevant laws and policies across six jurisdictions – the US, the EU, China, India, Brazil, and the Republic of Korea – as well as the practices of eight leading AI providers: Alibaba, Anthropic, DeepSeek, Google, Meta, Mistral AI, OpenAI, and xAI. This study is the result of a year-long effort led by Jordi Calvet-Bademunt, Senior Research Fellow, Jacob Mchangama, Executive Director, and Isabelle Anzabi, Research Associate – all from FFS – in collaboration with local experts, who contributed chapters on several jurisdictions.

The latest edition of the annual College Free Speech Rankings, compiled by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and College Pulse, reveals a continued deterioration of the free speech climate on American campuses. Based on 68,510 responses in the survey spanning 257 schools across the country, the report indicates that students on all sides of the political spectrum are highly reluctant to engage with ideas they consider controversial. The total of 166 schools received an “F” for their speech environment, while only 11 were graded with a “C” or higher. For the first time, one in three students shows some level of tolerance, even if minimal, for resorting to violence to prevent a campus speech.

Ahead of the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the US, scheduled for November 2025, PEN International and PEN America submitted a report on the violations of the rights to freedom of expression, education, and non-discrimination. The submission documents both state-level and federal actions that contribute to censorship in education: attacks on institutional autonomy, curriculum restrictions, dismantling of DEI programs, and educational gag orders. The report underscores the disproportional impact of such measures on students of color, women, LGBTQI+ persons, people with disabilities, and those from low-income families. (This past August, the Trump administration withdrew its participation in the upcoming UPR.)

In her latest report to the UN Human Rights Council, Mariana Katzarova, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Russian Federation, described the Kremlin’s escalation of repressions as a deliberate strategy to eliminate dissent. The vague and overly broad laws – on “foreign agents,” “undesirable organizations,” “discrediting the armed forces,” “disseminating fake news” about the army, “terrorism,” and “extremism” – remain instrumental in facilitating politically motivated prosecutions. Impunity – for Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, widespread torture, and ill-treatment – persists. “Justice inside Russia is unattainable,” Katzarova stressed, calling on the international community to mobilize accountability frameworks, including universal jurisdiction.

The Centre for Law and Democracy conducted a first-ever global “stress-test” study on the right to information (RTI) laws and their implementation. The report builds on the participation of volunteers across 122 countries and the results of 146 RTI inquiries filed in 76 States. In the key findings, 38% of requests received “mute refusals” or “no substantive reply at all,” 54% resulted in some information disclosed, and only 42% could be described as “full disclosures.” While explicit rejections scored low, the high no-response rate presented a problem. “Mute responses are a fundamental denial of the right to information,” the authors stressed. “If requests go unanswered, the right exists only on paper.”

In partnership with the Association for Progressive Communications, the Software Freedom Law Center, India, published a two-part guide on combating misinformation. Section 1 explains how misinformation spreads and offers practical fact-checking tools on identifying, verifying, and tackling false information. Section 2 surveys India’s relevant legal framework and outlines the remedies available to those who experience harm from misinformation. The guide breaks down harmful content by type – for example, gendered disinformation, discriminatory content, and defamatory statements – and reviews the corresponding protections for recourse.

Released by the Council of Europe (CoE) Division for Cooperation on Freedom of Expression, this guide outlines the risks of imposing criminal sanctions on particular forms of expression. The manual reviews relevant human rights standards, namely the European Court of Human Rights’ case law, policy guidance of the CoE bodies, and the European Commission for Democracy through Law. It then zooms in on the criminalization of hate speech, defamation and insult, the dissemination of confidential information, speech that threatens national security and public order, and disinformation. CoE Consultant Peter Noorlander prepared the guide within the Project Enhancing Institutional Capacities on Freedom of Expression and Information in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

A first-of-its-kind study for Latin America, the report documents how sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) became a tool of silencing dissent in the context of recent protests across the region: in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela. Prepared by the Academy on Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at American University Washington College of Law, REDRESS, and the Latin American Network for Gender-based Strategic Litigation, the study draws from victims’ testimonies and case studies, as well as the work of international and civil society organizations and the Inter-American Commission and Court. The report finds a systematic pattern in the weaponization of SGBV against women, LGBTQI+ persons, and other historically marginalized groups.

The report, prepared jointly by the European University Institute and Freedom House, explores the growing global threat to free and open Internet: state restrictions on anti-censorship technology – like virtual private networks, or VPNs – and end-to-end encryption protocols. One example is Venezuela, where last summer, during mass protests against President Nicolás Maduro’s election fraud, the government blocked the end-to-end encrypted app Signal. In the past five years, at least 21 of the 72 countries evaluated by Freedom House for the 2024 Freedom on the Net report curtailed access to secure communication technologies.

In collaboration with the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights, the TrialWatch initiative of the Clooney Foundation for Justice published a report on the increasing use of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) to silence journalists in Peru. Based on 56 criminal defamation cases – 42 of which concerned public interest – filed in 2007-2022 by, in the majority, public figures (93%), as well as the accounts of journalists told through interviews and a survey, the report documents a systematic abuse of press freedom in violation of Peru’s regional and international obligations. You can read it in Spanish.

The report assesses foreign interference in the 2025 Polish elections, identifying persistent information threats. Prepared by members of Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference Information Sharing and Analysis Centre, Alliance4Europe, and Debunk.org, the study builds on the work of 28 organizations and 90 practitioners. In the information operations analyzed, the dominant narrative casts the EU and Ukraine in a negative light, accusing them of election interference and presenting far-right politicians as guardians of Poland’s sovereignty. The tactics of manipulating public opinion involve creating fake online personalities and exploiting vulnerabilities in policy and moderation on X, TikTok, and Meta platforms.

The report, released by Nigeria-based Media Rights Agenda (MRA), evaluates the first two years of Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s presidency through the lens of media freedom in Nigeria. As threats to freedom of expression multiply – ranging from repressive laws and arrests of journalists to surveillance and censorship – the report documents media freedom violations by type of attack and perpetrator, non-compliance with the Freedom of Information Act, and misuse of the Cybercrime Act. Drawing from empirical evidence, legal and policy trends, and case studies, the report concludes by offering recommendations.

This legal guide, compiled by Nigeria-based Media Rights Agenda (MRA), responds to distinct and disproportionately higher risks for women practicing journalism due to gender-specific threats, like sexual harassment and gender-based violence. Joining the effort to safeguard the right to report freely, safely, and without fear in Nigeria, the guide provides an overview of national laws, regional frameworks, and international standards that protect women journalists. “This work is a testament to the power of legal tools in confronting structural inequality and advancing justice,” says Edetaen Ojo, MRA’s Executive Director.

This white paper, published jointly by CensHERship and The Case For Her this summer, outlines the alarming scale of digital censorship to which women’s health content is being subjected on major social networks and other very large online platforms, or VLOPs. Grounded in survey data, case studies, and complaints under the EU Digital Services Act, the report documents systematic removal, restriction, or down-ranking of “medically accurate, non-sexual content about menstruation, menopause, fertility, postpartum care, and sexual wellbeing.” Such posts routinely receive the labels of “adult content,” “inappropriate nudity,” or “sexual solicitation.” 95% of women’s health content creators surveyed reported they had experienced censorship; more than 50% of respondents said they self-censored to avoid content takedowns.

This 2025 issue brief, authored by electoral expert Ajay Patel and jointly published by UNESCO and the UN Development Programme, surveys the impact of AI on freedom of expression in the context of elections. Foregrounding international standards on freedom of expression and access to information, the paper aims to inform electoral practitioners on addressing the risks of AI – including deep fakes, voter manipulation, false information, lack of transparency, breaches of data privacy, bias, and gendered disinformation – as well as harnessing its benefits. The latter could contribute to information integrity in free and fair elections through multi-stakeholder coalitions, strategic communication campaigns, media capacity building, digital platforms’ cooperation, and media literacy programs, among others.

This study, a collaboration between UNESCO and the UN Development Programme, responds to the increasing calls for reforms of the media sector in Bangladesh, voiced in the wake and aftermath of last summer’s mass uprising. Based on the research conducted between July and December 2024, the lead experts – Dr. Joan Barata Mir of The Future of Free Speech, Vanderbilt University, and Dr. S M Shameem Reza of the Department of Mass Communication and Journalism, University of Dhaka – evaluate the legal, political, institutional, and financial challenges that Bangladesh’s landscape is currently facing. These findings inform the report’s key recommendations, grounded in international human rights standards, for legal and institutional reforms.

The Caravana Filipina, a fact-finding mission on extrajudicial killing and other gross human rights violations against legal professionals in the Philippines in 2016-2023, released its final report. A joint endeavor of ten organizations, including the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, the mission documented the cases of lawyers, judges, and prosecutors at the time of President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs and in connection with their efforts to hold the government accountable. In this report, the mission outlines patterns of retaliation against legal professionals, namely through surveillance and intimidation, red-tagging, lawfare, and extrajudicial killings. The mission reveals that state actors were involved, either directly or through passive consent, in gross human rights violations in the Philippines.

The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights released a new edition of the Inter-American Legal Framework on the Right to Freedom of Expression. Consolidating freedom of expression standards established by the bodies of the Inter-American system, this 139-page document builds on the earlier version, published in 2009 by the Office of Special Rapporteur Catalina Botero, CGFoE’s former consulting director. The updated version recognizes new categories of specially protected expression, like “speech on environmental issues and speech denouncing gender violence,” reflects the evolution of case law “on the incompatibility of criminal legislation to protect the honor of public officials over critical comments,” and adds strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) to categories of analysis, among many other additions. For now, the document is available in Spanish only.

At its 59th session this week, the UN Human Rights Council adopted a new resolution on the safety of journalists by consensus. The resolution, endorsed by ARTICLE 19, contains new language and more robust commitments. For instance, on strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs, the resolution now urges states to take a range of measures to prevent the abusive practice by adopting an early dismissal mechanism, introducing legal support along with remedies for victims, imposing penalties against those who initiate SLAPPs, ending so-called “forum-shopping,” and training judicial professionals in identifying and dealing with such cases. Other new and strong additions concern surveillance, armed conflict and occupation, transnational repression, and social media platforms.

This briefing paper, published by Amnesty International, outlines why, five years after the imposition of the National Security Law (NSL), renewed global advocacy is urgently needed to bring to justice those responsible for widespread rights violations in Hong Kong. The research examines patterns in arrests and prosecutions under the NSL framework, showing the drastic erosion of the main legal safeguards. The key findings are alarming: 1) in 85% of the analyzed cases, legitimate expression was on trial; 2) in 89% of national security cases, the courts denied bail; and 3) the length of pre-trial detention averaged 11 months. “[T]he authorities are deploying vague and overly broad legal provisions to target opposition voices and dismantle civil society,” the briefing concluded.

The report, published by the Digital Human Rights Monitor of the Movimiento Vinotinto Civil Association in December 2024, explains how Venezuela’s political and social crisis undermines the exercise of fundamental rights in digital environments. Written by Manuel Virguez and Yasmin Faneite of Movimiento Vinotinto, the study documents the state of digital rights in Venezuela over the past year by focusing on freedom of expression online, institutional cyberviolence, and access to information. The methods used to compile the report included a review of documents (laws, doctrines, and opinions of international organizations), surveys of Internet users, and in-depth interviews with human rights defenders, activists, and tech specialists who have been directly affected by the state’s digital repression.

In this thematic report, the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, Irene Khan, documents the interconnected erosion of both freedom of expression and the right to vote. “If public confidence in elections is to be restored, the decline in freedom of expression must be reversed,” the Rapporteur states and points to key vulnerabilities: political polarization, a surge of dis/misinformation and hate speech online, “the backsliding of social media platforms on their commitments to safety and electoral integrity,” and the weak state of the traditional media sector. In compiling the report, the Rapporteur conducted multiple consultations, including regional workshops in Addis Ababa, Bangkok, Santiago, and Istanbul, and received dozens of written contributions from experts, including CGFoE.

Human Rights Watch, the International Commission of Jurists, and Turkey Human Rights Litigation Support Project published a joint briefing on Türkiye’s rule of law crisis. The briefing recounts the state’s persistent failure to comply with the European Convention on Human Rights: Among the most frequent violations are “Articles 5 (liberty and security), 6 (fair trial), 10 (freedom of expression), and 11 (freedom of assembly and association).” The briefing also underscores that Türkiye fails to enforce the binding decisions of the European Court of Human Rights: For instance, defying the Court’s rulings, Türkiye continues to arbitrarily detain several opposition figures. The briefing urges the EU to act, citing the Union’s obligations to advance human rights in its external relations under Articles 21 and 3 of the EU Treaty.

The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association (ILGA) in Europe published its annual flagship report “2025 Rainbow Map” – a snapshot of the state of human rights for LGBTQI+ communities on the continent. The sharpest drops that the report recorded concern Hungary, where the authorities banned a Pride parade, the UK, where the Supreme Court defined a woman by “biological sex,” and Georgia, where a broad anti-LGBTQI+ legislation package, mirroring Russia’s laws, was passed. Calling attention to the setbacks and overall erosion of democracy in Europe, the report also spotlights resistance through courts: the CJEU’s rulings that Hungary “must correct the gender markers of transgender refugees without requiring proof of surgery” and that “France’s gender-based railway ticketing system violated GDPR, discriminating against non-binary and transgender individuals,” as well as national courts’ decisions in Czechia, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Spain.

As part of ARTICLE 19’s global #FreeToProtest campaign advancing the right to protest principles, this new report documents China’s systematic targeting of its critics through transnational repression. The most prolific perpetrator of such repression globally, China has resorted to harassment, violence, abduction, forced repatriation, surveillance, censorship, and retaliation against family members in China, among others, to silence protesters abroad. Building on research and almost thirty interviews with the diaspora from China, “including ethnic Han Chinese, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Kazakhs, and Mongolians, as well as Hong Kongers,” the report records incidents that took place in 2011-24 across Asia, Europe, and North America and offers recommendations to the Chinese authorities, host states, and tech companies. 

In this study for the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), Paula-Charlotte Matlach, Analyst at ISD Germany, and Charlotte Drath, Research Consultant at ISD, examine online gender-based violence on TikTok, which is becoming an important space for political expression. Matlach and Drath have conducted an audit of the platform’s search algorithm and its content moderation on sexual violence and analyzed the harmful gendered content in Hungary and Germany, as well as within the contexts of the 2024 European Parliamentary and French legislative elections. ISD’s key findings show “how digital platforms like TikTok shape the landscape of gendered violence and how online manifestations of discrimination threaten individual rights while undermining democratic principles and institutions.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) released a new report on students and student groups punished or investigated by American college and university administrators between 2020 and 2024 for speech protected by the First Amendment. FIRE recorded 1,014 attempts to suppress expression on campus, 63% of which led to administrative sanctions. The report highlights two distinct periods prompted by racial justice protests following George Floyd’s death and by the war in Gaza following Hamas’ attack on Israel: 1) in 2020-22, “most students and student groups were targeted by their peers, for speech about race, and from their left”; 2) in 2023-24, “most were targeted by administrators, for speech about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and from their right.” FIRE also launched an interactive database listing all the cases that informed the report.

Published with the support of the UNESCO Pau Casals Chair, a joint initiative between the Pau Casals Foundation and the Open University of Catalonia, this research paper explores the legacy of Pau Casals, renowned Spanish cellist, composer, and advocate for peace, freedom, and democracy, who was forced into exile due to war in 1939. Human rights lawyer and researcher Laurence Cuny breaks down international protection mechanisms for artists at risk through a historical perspective: Part I unpacks the protection of artists as a human rights matter; Part II relays the contributions of Casals as a cultural rights defender; and Part III assesses the present-day structures of protection, their gaps, and ways that the role of Casals “continues to be of value to address these gaps.”

Published in Argentina by FOPEA (the Argentine Journalism Forum) in Spanish in early May 2025, the report focuses on 2024, highlighting that political power in Argentina was responsible for 52% of the attacks on the press that year. It also shows that attacks on journalism increased by 53% compared to the previous year, mainly driven by political actors and President Milei, with a strong impact in the digital sphere. The most common types of attacks were stigmatizing speech (45,25%), physical assaults (25,14%), and restrictions on access to information (11,73%). In terms of victims by media type, the report recorded attacks on TV journalists (73), radio journalists (47), media organizations (30), digital outlets (25), and newspapers (23).

This case study, released by Pakistan-based human rights organization Bytes for All and featured by IFEX on May 19, 2025, sheds light on AI’s alarming failures to distinguish facts from falsehoods at a critical time – an unfolding interstate conflict, a national crisis – when the internet is flooded by misinformation. During the recent Pakistan-India escalating tensions, the authors tested several AI models (ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and DeepSeek) with prompts of queries imitating user interactions: for instance, by asking “Did India capture Pakistani pilots?” The assessment of responses to made-up or satirical content showed that AI systems “can be overwhelmed or manipulated during these high-risk events, resulting in biased or incorrect fact-checking outcomes.”

In this policy brief published by Freedom House, Amy Slipowitz, who leads The Fred Hiatt Program to Free Political Prisoners, writes on autocrats’ persecution of legal and judicial professionals around the world. Citing Freedom House data between 2014 and 2024, Slipowitz points to at least 78 countries (varying from dictatorships to democracies), where judges, prosecutors, and lawyers have experienced retaliation in the form of detention, prosecution, and imprisonment. What gives rise to such large-scale repression? Slipowitz outlines two political contexts: 1) Persecution to protect the status-quo (Iran cracking down on the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement; Myanmar responding to the pro-democracy movement after the 2021 coup) and 2) Persecution to strengthen a new regime (early years of Xi Jinping in power in China and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in power in Türkiye). Slipowitz lists recommendations, urging for action against repression that targets legal professionals.

Civil Liberties Union for Europe released its fourth annual report, Liberties Media Freedom Report 2025. Based on the data provided by 43 partner organizations, the report covers the state of media freedom and pluralism, the safety of journalists, freedom of expression and access to information, and relevant legislation across 21 EU Member States. One of the main findings is high media ownership concentration (in Croatia, France, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden). As the EU is approaching the stage of enforcement concerning its key press-related laws, the report calls on the EU bodies to cooperate with civil society and urges national authorities to ensure the proper transposition of the European Media Freedom Act and the Anti-SLAPP Directive into national legislation.

This report, published by Human Rights Watch (HRW), interrogates the scale of the Vietnamese government's abuse of Article 331 of the penal code, which criminalizes infringements “upon the interests of the state,” to persecute critics. Used “not only to silence prominent activists and whistleblowers, but to retaliate against ordinary people who complain about poor services or police abuse, Article 331 is the government’s handy tool to infringe upon the basic rights of Vietnamese citizens,” said Patricia Gossman, Associate Asia Director at HRW. The report identified at least 124 people sentenced to long prison sentences under the article between 2018 and February 2025.

Published by Tech Global Institute, this white paper s a result of 12 digital rights organizations convening in Kathmandu, Nepal, last year to share lessons in combating digital authoritarianism in South Asia. The paper analyzes the digital rights challenges in the region – state control, imposition of external regulatory models, among others – and focuses on Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The authors stress the urgency of forming a South Asian digital rights coalition: “Such a coalition would facilitate regional collaboration, enabling civil society to collectively advocate for a more equitable, locally relevant approach to digital rights.”

This report, released by Amnesty International, documents Argentina’s 2024 as a “year of serious setbacks in the exercise of the right to protest.” The implementation of the so-called Anti-Picket Protocol marked patterns of repression and criminalization targeting dissenters. Based on interviews with protesters, human rights lawyers, medical workers, and journalists, the report recorded at least 15 protest actions during which the state resorted to excessive use of force; the corresponding numbers are alarming: 1,155 people injured; 33 individuals hit with rubber bullets in the head or face; 50 media workers injured; 73 people receiving criminal charges for their participation in the protests. Read the report here (in Spanish only). 

Published jointly by the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) and World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA), the report focuses on economic charges – tax evasion, money laundering, blackmail, terrorism financing, fraud, and illegally receiving foreign funds – as tools to silence individual journalists and entire media outlets. “That media companies are obliged to defend their work from fair legal challenge is nothing new,” writes Andrew Heslop, Executive Director, WAN-IFRA, “[...] But when doing so becomes disproportionate, overburdensome, or simply a convenient way to censor with a veneer of legal legitimacy, it is a warning – a step towards the erosion of trust, transparency, and accountability upon which the entire system relies.” The report includes eight case studies: Abzas Media (Azerbaijan), El Faro (El Salvador), Erick Kabendera (Tanzania), Jimmy Lai (Hong Kong), José Rubén Zamora (Guatemala), Maria Ressa and Rappler (Philippines), NewsClick (India), and Nika Gvaramia (Georgia). 

Based on survey data from 33 countries, this recent report, published by The Future of Free Speech, tackles the following questions: In the face of various kinds and degrees of restrictions, how much do people support free speech? What matters do people think they should be allowed to debate and critique? While majorities in surveyed countries generally support free speech, the exact figures vary significantly – between 54% and 88%. The highest levels of support for free speech are in Scandinavian countries, but also Hungary and Venezuela. Japan, Israel, and the US have dropped considerably in support since the 2021 edition of the report. “Most nations show high levels of support for free speech in the abstract,” the report states, “but support is lower and more divided when it comes to statements that are offensive to minorities or one’s own religion, supportive of homosexual relationships, or insulting to the national flag.”

In the 2023-2024 academic year, PEN America recorded 10,046 cases of school book bans in the US. A recently published report analyzes the unique titles affected, more than 4,000 of them, applying 37 variables concerning the type of book and its content. The results show that the bans are removing entire identities from library shelves: “36% of all banned titles featured characters or people of color and a quarter (25%) included LGBTQ+ people or characters. Of titles with LGBTQ+ people or characters, over a quarter (28%) feature trans and/or genderqueer characters.” With the analysis of graphics and illustrations, certain identity-targeting becomes even more blatant: “73% of all graphic and illustrated titles feature LGBTQ+ representation, people or characters of color, or discuss race or racism.”

Amnesty International published the English translation of its report, originally released in Spanish, on online gender-based violence against journalists in Argentina. The study documents digital violence targeting gender-diverse and women journalists from 2018 until 2024, evaluating the impact on freedom of expression in the country. Based on 36 interviews and 403 survey responses, the report found that almost two-thirds, or 63.5%, of the respondents had experienced digital violence in the past six years. Isolated attacks or insults make up 98.3% of the cases, followed by harassment or trolling, sexual harassment or threats of sexual violence, and threats of physical violence. In more than half of the cases, coverage of abortion was the trigger, followed by reporting on femicides, gender-based violence, and human rights. Almost half of the respondents said they self-censored on social media. For more on online gender-based violence against journalists, revisit Dávila v. National Electoral Council, a landmark decision from the Colombian Constitutional Court.

Published by members of the South East European Network for Professionalization of Media, this report analyzes the state of media and democracy in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey. Based on the map of key indicators and corresponding data, the authors conclude, “as decidedly as ever,” that the region’s media are in a systemic crisis, manifesting in “how they are defined, regulated, owned, financed, and managed.” Among the many factors negatively impacting the media of the Western Balkans and Turkey are journalists’ exposure to pressure and attacks, SLAPPs, small numbers of journalism students, media ownership concentration, lack of transparency, limited representation, political instability, and authoritarianism.

Published by the INFORM Human Rights Documentation Centre, based in Colombo, Sri Lanka, the report reviews the country’s human rights record in 2024. Drawing from its monthly reports on the repression of dissent, the Centre has documented relevant court cases, legal reforms, the Tamil community activists demanding accountability for war crimes, and discrimination against LGBTQI+ individuals. With regard to press freedom, the report refers to cases of persecution, assaults, attempted abductions, and surveillance targeting journalists. The government has also curtailed the public’s right to peaceful assembly. In a blow to digital rights and freedom of expression, last January, the controversial Online Safety Bill was passed by a majority vote, despite warnings from civil society. 

Media Freedom Rapid Response (MFRR) published its annual Europe-focused report documenting press freedom violations in the EU Member States and nine candidate countries between January and December 2024. MFRR recorded a total of 1,548 press freedom violations with 2,567 entities or media professionals involved. The 359 of those violations were online attacks – a significant increase from 266 such cases recorded in the previous year. Legal attacks against journalists also occurred more frequently: 319 cases concerning 556 media workers or organizations. MFRR described demonstrations and protests as “among the most dangerous environments for journalists in 2024”: more than 50% of the 271 protest-related press freedom violations documented were physical attacks on reporters – with police or state security forces often being the perpetrators.

In this submission to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Egypt in January 2025, Amnesty International assesses the country’s human rights framework and its implementation of previous UPR’s recommendations. “Since Egypt’s third UPR in 2019, the country has remained in the throes of a protracted human rights and impunity crisis,” the group states. Evaluating the current state of freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly on the ground, Amnesty underscores that thousands of people – journalists, activists, and protesters among them – have been arrested arbitrarily and/or faced unjust persecution, while at least 600 websites, including news, politics, and human rights platforms, have been blocked since 2017. On the occasions of rare protests, Amnesty stresses, the Egyptian authorities have resorted to unlawful force in their crackdown and mass arrests.

As part of a series surveying online-gender-based violence, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) published a report that examines TikTok’s content moderation in English, French, German, and Hungarian. The results point to algorithmic bias. Using the method of qualitative analysis, the ISD researchers entered racist and misogynistic slurs – twelve in total, three for each language – as prompts in TikTok’s search engine and analyzed the produced outcomes. In two-thirds of the videos examined, the platform’s search function and recommendation algorithms “perpetuated harmful stereotypes,” effectively creating routes that connected “users searching for hateful language with content targeting marginalized groups.”

This report, published annually by 7amleh - The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, documents systemic violations of Palestinians’ digital rights – violations amplified by the 15-month Israel-Gaza war. What roles do Israeli authorities and social media companies play in restricting digital spaces for Palestinians? From hateful and discriminatory content and surveillance systems to the militarization of AI and large-scale damage to communication infrastructure, the report surveys the impact on freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and association, right to privacy, and right to internet and information access.

This Handbook, published by the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE), is designed to guide individual public watchdogs and small non-governmental and media organizations that could be targeted with a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (SLAPP) but have no support of a legal department. How can you minimize your vulnerability to being sued by the rich and powerful? What are the strategies of defense against SLAPPs? If you are dealing with a threat or a lawsuit already, how can you get help? The Handbook addresses defamation, copyright and trademark law, protests, whistleblowing and commercial and official secrets, and data protection. CASE includes a disclaimer: “The best precaution is always to ask a qualified local lawyer in your jurisdiction for advice. This Guidebook is meant as the next best option. It is not legal advice [...].”

The report was put together by the Latin American Observatory of Digital Threats, an alliance of organizations – Derechos Digitales among them – defending digital rights and investigating digital security in Latin America. A “synthesis” of the OLAD members’ work from December 2023 to May 2024, the report builds on two methods: 1) context monitoring, which makes a joint effort to examine the digital security context in the region, and 2) data schematization, which concerns the cases documented by each organization of the alliance individually – 411 cases in total. The issues addressed include surveillance and espionage, online gender-based violence, critical infrastructure attacks, and other online freedom of expression violations in the countries where the OLAD organizations are based: Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, México, Nicaragua, and Venezuela.

This Amnesty International report charts the deployment of surveillance technology by Serbian authorities, who use digital repression tactics to control and persecute civil society. Based on technical digital forensic research and extensive interviews with spyware victims and Serbian civil society members, the report documents Serbia’s ubiquitous use of data extraction products, including NSO’s Pegasus spyware and the new NoviSpy spyware system – revealed by Amnesty for the first time in this report – targeting journalists, activists, and protesters. “Implement a human rights regulatory framework that governs surveillance and is in line with international human rights law and standards,” one of the report’s recommendations to Serbian authorities states. “Until such a framework is implemented, a moratorium on the purchase, sale, transfer, and use of all spyware should be enforced.” 

The Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) concluded 2024 with a report on the further erosion of media safety and freedom of expression in the country. The PPF has documented patterns of violence against journalists – targeted killings, abductions, arrests, physical assault, intimidation, and legal harassment. As waves of protests swept across Pakistan after the February 2024 election, disputed by the opposition, attacks on the media followed, while effective action on the part of the authorities did not. From January until December 2024, the PPF recorded at least 162 attacks on journalists and media workers. They include two killings, 72 assaults, and four abductions, among others.

The article, published by Media Defence, reviews some of the written submissions – third-party interventions and expert opinions – that the organization filed before domestic courts in 2024, striving to foster press freedom at national levels. The list of countries includes Albania, Angola, Brazil, Cambodia, Colombia, Mexico, Romania, Serbia, and Thailand. The cases vary in the issues considered: Media Defence filed arguments on source confidentiality, sedition laws, satire, incitement, restriction of information access, artistic expression, respect for private life, data protection, and surveillance.

Published by Access Now, this new report responds to states’ efforts to introduce platform regulation frameworks (like the EU’s Digital Services Act, for example). Many such laws aimed at regulating platforms turn into tools of oppression, as Access Now has documented extensively. To help ensure that policymakers seek platform accountability respecting international human rights standards and the rule of law, the report offers a checklist consisting of five principles: 1) Ensuring institutional checks and balances of state power; 2) Safeguarding an independent and impartial judiciary; 3) Establishing transparent and good governance; 4) Protecting and enabling free and safe civic space; 5) Establishing and adequately enforcing data protection principles before regulating online platforms.

The TrialWatch initiative of the Clooney Foundation for Justice published a report on Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and trials. Authored by Zimran Samuel, who is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London, the report zooms in on the blasphemy laws in practice (and malpractice) based on the monitoring of trials in Lahore, the capital of the Punjab province, over the course of 6 months in 2022. The monitoring concerned 24 cases, which amounted to more than 250 hearings: in 15 cases, the accused were detained; 217 examined hearings resulted in adjournments, most frequently because prosecution witnesses or complainants were absent; in five cases, the defendants showed mental health concerns; two cases resulted in convictions – one life sentence and one death penalty. “There are few barriers to prevent essentially anyone from registering a case,” Samuel writes, “and accused persons are often swiftly arrested [...] becom[ing] mired in proceedings that stretch on nearly indefinitely.”

The report, prepared jointly by the Centro para la Apertura y el Desarrollo de América Latina (CADAL) and the Artistic Freedom Initiative (AFI), covers Nicaragua’s crackdown on artists and cultural workers. CADAL and AFI focus on the period between 2018, when mass protests against President Daniel Ortega swept Nicaragua, and 2023; the government still resorts to silencing measures, such as prosecution, imprisonment, and denaturalization, against dissenting artists. The report’s Chapter 2 analyzes the laws and policies used to suppress expression, including through the tactics of surveillance, harassment, and disenfranchisement; the report’s legal experts show such measures are incompatible with Nicaragua’s international human rights obligations. In between chapters, CADAL and AFI feature artwork by Nicaraguan cartoonist and illustrator Pedro X. Molina on the themes of censorship, persecution, exile, and resistance.

The third edition of the overview report on Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) in Europe indicates a clear trend: SLAPPs continue to proliferate on the continent. Prepared jointly by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation and the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE), the report refers to a total of 1,049 SLAPP cases between 2010 and 2023. The authors note, however, that the numbers do not represent an exhaustive survey and are likely only the “tip of the iceberg.” For now, the number of SLAPPs identified in Europe in 2023 alone is 166, and many were initiated in Italy, Romania, Serbia, and Türkiye. In total, SLAPPs were filed in 41 countries across the continent, and the report lists some countries for the first time, like Monaco, Lithuania, Azerbaijan, and Denmark. 36% of the 2023 SLAPP cases were related to corruption, and 16% concerned environmental issues. Journalists are still targeted more often than any other public watchdogs, while Europe’s rich and powerful are still the most frequent SLAPPers: businesses and business people initiated almost half of the 2023 cases, and politicians filed over a third of them.

The Coalition For Women In Journalism (CFWIJ) released a report on press freedom violations against women journalists in Africa – a total of 258 recorded between 2019 and 2024. While underreporting explains why the number of violations appears to be lower than in other regions, a clear trend emerges: the most extreme acts of violence – such as physical attacks, abductions, and murders – are disproportionately high. Since August 2023, when civil war erupted, Sudan has been deadly for reporters: journalists Halima Idris Salim and Samaher Abdelshafee were killed; journalist Inaam Ahmady was threatened at gunpoint while her home was looted and set on fire. Egypt accounts for 17% of the documented violations: the country’s women journalists have faced arrests, legal harassment, media shutdowns, physical and sexual assault, threats, and intimidation. Nigeria accounts for 12% of the cases, pointing to a disturbing trend: armed groups or unknown assailants often abduct women journalists, with notable cases being Priestba Nwockocha of Radio Rivers (2023), Amra Ahmed Diska of Adamawa Broadcasting Corporation (2021), and Chinenye Iwuoha of Federal Radio Corporation (2020).

The American Bar Association Centre for Human Rights, Media Defence, and Thomson Reuters Foundation are reviewing cases of harassment and persecution of lawyers who represent journalists. The research, a first of its kind, surveyed the last ten years and identified 40 cases, most of them across Guatemala, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Russia, Zimbabwe, Kyrgyzstan, Ethiopia, Belarus, China, and Hong Kong. The preliminary report notes the cited figures likely do not fully account for the persecution of lawyers defending journalists worldwide. The initial findings point to four groups of threats. 1) Criminal and other lawsuits: examples include “anti-state, anti-terror, bribery and corruption laws, as well as false news laws.” 2) Undermining the lawyers’ ability to defend journalists: tactics range from seizure of lawyers’ property (such as case files) to disqualification from a particular case to cyberattacks and spyware. 3) Undermining the lawyers’ ability to practice their profession: authorities resort to arbitrary disbarment or suspension of licenses, abuse of disciplinary proceedings, change of bar association rules, and “foreign agent” labels. Finally, lawyers have faced 4) Death threats, physical assault, forced exile, and restrictions on travel and communication.

Scholars at Risk (SAR) released their latest annual report on the state of academic freedom globally. The findings are alarming and go beyond authoritarian countries – liberal democracies have also been culpable of undermining higher education. From July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, SAR identified 391 attacks on scholars, students, and academic institutions in 51 countries and territories, highlighting troubling developments in 18 of them, namely Afghanistan, China, Colombia, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Iran, Israel, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Palestine, Russia, Türkiye, Sudan, Ukraine, the UK, and the US. Over the reporting period, SAR documented the devastating impact of military conflicts on entire education systems, crackdowns on political dissent with arrests and prosecution of professors and students, silencing and dismissal of those criticizing officials, and new laws and policies eroding university autonomy. The report put a spotlight on campus protests prompted by the Israel-Gaza conflict and the now-limited freedom of expression spaces at universities in several countries, including the US.

Coalition for Women in Journalism (CFWIJ) points to 12 SLAPPs initiated against women journalists covering such gender issues as sexual abuse and harassment, workplace misconduct, and broader issues (like child abuse) around the world. Türkiye is becoming a hotspot for such cases, with other countries being Pakistan, Paraguay, Peru, the US, Lebanon, France, and Greece. Legal actions – on defamation charges most frequently – are often initiated by state officials or individuals and institutions with ties to the government. Women reporters who cover feminist events have been accused of “participating in unlawful assemblies,” “spreading misinformation,” or “violating religious sentiments.” The authorities, in Türkiye especially, often detain women journalists during feminist events and damage their equipment.

A new UNESCO issue brief outlines a growing trend in allegations of financial wrongdoing as tools to silence journalists. Based on 120 relevant cases dated between 2005 and 2024, the brief detects a significant increase in cases between 2019 and 2023 – 60% of those reviewed. The most frequent charges are extortion, tax evasion, and money laundering; among other allegations identified are blackmail, embezzlement, and foreign funds obtained illegally. Regionally, more cases occur in Asia and the Pacific, and Eastern Europe and Central Asia. As a tactic to target journalists, the misuse of financial laws has features different from other ways of silencing critical voices: accusations of financial wrongdoing almost exclusively come from state actors; unlike defamation charges, such accusations do not require an established connection between journalists’ published work and the charge; facing the complexity of alleged financial crimes, journalists and media outlets need tax and other legal expertise, which they often do not have access to.

In this policy brief published by UNESCO, Joan Barata, Senior Legal Fellow for The Future of Free Speech, focuses on the right to information and one specific aspect within the realm of exceptions to this right – the so-called “public interest override.” The policy brief cites the relevant international law provisions and national and international case law as courts have used the public interest override to balance the public’s right to know with other competing matters and interests, like national security, privacy, commercial confidentiality, or law enforcement. Among the principles and recommendations listed, the first one reminds states and other relevant actors that any restrictions imposed on the right to information “must respect the three-part test established under international and regional human rights standards (legality, legitimacy, and proportionality).”

In a report on transnational repression targeting women journalists outside their home countries, the Coalition for Women in Journalism (CFWIJ) has recorded a dramatic increase in states’ attempts to silence those abroad – from 19 cases in 2023 to 49 in 2024. The perpetrators are Iran, Russia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Türkiye, Ethiopia, Malaysia, and Venezuela. These states have resorted to intimidation, threats, and legal harassment, while Iran, Azerbaijan, and Russia have also employed such tactics as physical attacks, abductions, and assassination attempts against journalists in exile. One of the major cases the report highlights is that of journalist Sima Sabet: “[Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’] attempt to assassinate me through hired criminals on UK soil is an unequivocal act of terrorism,” Sabet told CFWIJ.

This report, prepared by Human Rights Watch, Belarusian Association of Human Rights Lawyers, and Right to Defence and published in May 2024, focuses on the lawyers who represented politically prosecuted Belarusians and shed light on the egregious human rights violations in detention – until the authorities came for them, too. The result of this retribution campaign is the “nearly complete takeover of the legal profession in Belarus”: the regime has resorted to criminal prosecution of lawyers, harassment, intimidation, arbitrary revocation of their licenses, and subjection to abuse while in detention. Amendments to the Law on the Bar and Practice of Law, along with public statements of Belarusian officials, eliminate the independence of lawyers and assign them the roles of “statesmen.” The sentences of six lawyers – Maksim Znak, Aliaksandr Danilevich, Vital Brahinets, Anastasiya Lazarenka, Yuliya Yurhilevich, and Aliaksei Barodka – range from six to ten years.

The latest report by the Human Rights Center “Viasna,” published over the summer, provides an updated review of the crackdown on rights and freedoms in Belarus, covering the period from March 2023 to March 2024. The report shows that, under the pretext of tackling extremism and terrorism, the Belarusian authorities have been amending legislation and using it to ramp up repression. The report outlines applicable international standards, surveys national legislation, explains the practice of designating individuals and legal entities as “extremist” and “terrorist,” and unpacks criminal prosecution practices employed to restrict free speech – on charges from the dissemination of fakes to “insulting government officials” to hooliganism, among many others.

In this newly released report, part of the Engaging Tech for Internet Freedom initiative, ARTICLE 19 focuses on tech companies and their corresponding human rights obligations in authoritarian states – in this issue, China, Myanmar, and Vietnam. Zooming in on freedom of expression and privacy, the report unpacks how tech companies have been responding to oppressive legal and political conditions. Case studies show that companies have often referred to domestic laws in explaining their collaboration with the authorities, thus allowing for censorship, propaganda, breach of data privacy, and surveillance. ARTICLE 19 calls on companies to employ a human-rights-centered approach in decision-making and comply with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The report lists recommendations for the states in the region and tech companies operating within them. Find more relevant ARTICLE 19 publications on China, Myanmar, and Vietnam here.

This report, published by Access Now and prepared by Franco Giandana Gigena, Latin America Policy Analyst, serves as a reference book for policy-makers in Latin America by systemizing examples of and recommendations on AI-tailored public policy. The report underlines the best practices that can pave the way to human-rights-based regulatory approaches without forestalling innovation; in addition of the fundamental rights focus, Access Now singles out four more minimum standards for regulating AI: transparency, effective monitoring mechanisms (studies of impact on fundamental rights specifically), enforcement and applicable sanctions, and consideration of local contexts.

Director of the UNESCO Chair on Freedom of Expression at the Universidad de Los Andes, Co-Chair of Meta’s Oversight Board, and Former Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression of the IACHR, Catalina Botero-Marino contributed this chapter to the volume on The Impact of the Inter-American Human Rights System: Transformations on the Ground (New York, 2024). The chapter lays out how the current freedom of expression standards – including those on speech about the issues of public interest and prohibitions of prior and indirect censorship, among others – came to be established within the Inter-American Human Rights System. The chapter then focuses on the transformative influence that two of those standards have had on domestic legal systems: “the standard regarding the limits of criminal law and the standard regarding the scope and nature of the right to access public information.”

Commissioned by the UN Department of Peace Operations and the UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, this recently published report delivers a conceptual analysis of the three major challenges of our time – hate speech, misinformation, and disinformation – and their similarities and differences. Written by Claire Wardle, PhD, Brown University, the report focuses on the contexts of conflict and high risk. Wardle provides an overview of relevant human rights law and international humanitarian law, stressing the “need for responses that respect freedom of expression while addressing harmful speech.”

This summer, the UN launched Global Principles for Information Integrity, which tackle the main information challenges of our technological era – misinformation, disinformation, and hate speech. Grounded in international law and consultations with Member States, scholars, media, civil society, and private sector representatives, the principles serve as a framework that invites “multi-stakeholder action for a healthier information ecosystem.” There are five principles: 1) Societal Trust and Resilience, 2) Healthy Incentives, 3) Public Empowerment, 4) Independent, Free, and Pluralistic Media, and 5) Transparency and Research. The recommendations follow the principles’ descriptions and address technology companies, AI actors, advertisers and other private sector actors, news media, researchers, civil society, states, other political actors, and the UN.

Published by the Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility (CMFR) and prepared together with co-founders of the Freedom for Media, Freedom for All network, the report starts with a warning: the scale of the damage done to press freedom in the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte has yet to be known. From July 1, 2022, to April 30, 2024, 135 attacks and threats against journalists have been documented; 45 of those cases are instances of “red-tagging,” and 19 are cases of unlawful surveillance. Alarmingly, 37% of all the cases recorded allegedly bear links to government agents. Eight journalists received charges of libel and “cyber libel.” Three reporters – Rey Blanco, Percy Lapid, and Cresencio Bundoquin – have been killed during that time. Calling for more media to cover human rights issues, the CMFR stresses, “Press freedom is designed to create a society where citizens are continually educated, learning what they must know, helping them develop the judgment to choose good leaders, and committed to democratic development so citizens can exercise their rights without fear.”

This report, published by Human Rights Watch in collaboration with Florida Rising and Rule of Law Impact Lab at Stanford Law School, argues Florida’s school curriculum distortions constitute censorship and are inconsistent with “international human rights standards on education, access to information, and discrimination.” The report outlines the legal framework that contributes to harassment and discrimination based on race, sex, and gender in Florida classrooms: House Bill 7, or the Stop WOKE Act; House Bill 1557, or the “Don’t Say Gay or Trans” law; and House Bill 1069, an extension of the “Don’t Say Gay or Trans.” What adds to the laws are state education policies, one of which forwards a “patriotic” curriculum with incorrect facts about the history of slavery in the US. The report’s “International Human Rights Law Analysis” section lists Florida’s obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights, and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, namely: upholding the rights to education free of discrimination, culturally appropriate education, free expression, and health.

ARTICLE 19’s newly published report is a three-part series on Queer Resistance to Digital Oppression in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). It is based on the experiences of more than five thousand LGBTQI+ people from Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia. The research, conducted in cooperation with The De|Center and local experts, tackles two overarching questions: How do the authorities in the MENA region weaponize technology – from messaging and dating apps to social media – to target the LGBTQI+ community? And how can tech companies help protect the community and other marginalized groups? Part I of the report reviews the regional context, pointing to the laws that have enabled the oppression. Part II includes the findings from interviews, surveys, and focus groups and analyzes the “harrowing evidence of tech-enabled police and state violence against the LGBTQ community.” Part III lists recommendations for tech companies, outlining concrete ways through which the companies can fulfill their human rights obligations. 

The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) published a thematic report on the digital age challenges to inclusion and public debate, focusing specifically on digital literacy and content moderation processes. Premised on the international human rights principles, the report offers normative guidance – in essence, a content governance framework – to states and other relevant actors “​​in promoting an internet that is truly accessible to all persons, without discrimination.” The report concludes with a list of recommendations, one of which urges states to adopt policies that tackle “hate speech or disinformation coming from public figures” but warns that “[s]uch policies should be aligned with international human rights standards, especially the three-part test of legality, legitimate aim, and necessity and proportionality.”

The Gender Apartheid Inquiry, conducted by a Panel of UK Parliamentarians and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, seeks to investigate the situation for women and girls in Afghanistan and Iran and join the conversation on codifying gender apartheid. The Inquiry’s recently published report argues that while the Rome Statute includes the crime of gender persecution, “the experience of women and girls in Afghanistan and Iran, although different in some respects, requires a more accurate representation in law” due to the institutionalization and scale of oppression. The report reviews the states of education, employment, movement, expression, assembly, association, and access to justice for women and girls in the two countries. The Inquiry then examines the gender apartheid concept and considers legal avenues for codifying it.

The report, funded by the Earth Journalism Network at Internews, interrogates the global state of climate and environmental journalism in the context of rapidly spreading mis- and disinformation, jurisdictions repressing media freedom, lack of resources and access to data, and risks that accompany climate reporters and cause self-censorship. The study includes a literature review, methodology outline, and results based on the multi-language survey and semi-structured interviews, totaling 744 survey respondents and 74 journalists interviewed. Half of the respondents said they had experienced verbal threats, almost a third of them had been subjected to legal threats or lawsuits, while another third had received threats from governments – and these are only some of the alarming findings. The report concludes with recommendations for funding organizations, newsrooms, journalists, and further research.  

The study, published by Access Now, analyzes the UN Security Council resolutions between 2001-2023, focusing on digital, cyber, and human rights and the language used to refer to them. The findings show that when it comes to including digital rights in the broader human rights and security agenda, the UN Security Council is falling behind if compared with “more digitally aware” UN bodies. The report emphasizes that the UN Security Council “is overlooking the overall advancement of international law protecting people, peace, and security in the digital age, focusing on operational and physical security at the expense of human rights and human security.” The paper concludes with recommendations for the Council’s Member States.

How can media freedom literacy (MFL) be strengthened in the participating states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)? Establishing the not-so-often-emphasized connection between media literacy and media freedom, this report, commissioned by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media (RFoM), offers practical tools for government bodies, scholars, media organizations, civil society, and digital platforms. Chapter 4 defines and explains MFL, while Chapter 5 reviews key legislative and regulatory frameworks at international and national levels, including the European Media Freedom Act and Digital Services Act, among others, and approaches developed in Belgium, Sweden, Finland, Latvia, UK, US, and Canada. Chapter 7, a broader review of MFL projects and interventions, is followed by recommendations to various stakeholders and case studies of projects that promote MFL.

As part of the International Press Institute’s World Congress this year, the Office of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media (RFoM) hosted a panel discussion on AI and its impact on media pluralism and public interest information. The list of speakers included Julia Angwin, investigative journalist, David Kaye, former UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression and opinion, and Damian Tambini, Distinguished Policy Fellow in the Department of Media and Communications at LSE. This outcome report recaps the discussion in the form of colorful post-its and a concise summary of key opportunities and challenges that Generative AI presents. The report concludes with recommendations for the OSCE RFoM, states, and other stakeholders, calling for more “research, analysis and multi-stakeholder engagement” that the rapid technological development demands.

The Centre for Communication Governance at National Law University Delhi, LIRNEasia, and the School of Law at BRAC University published a report that outlines the social media regulation frameworks and trends in Sri Lanka, India, and Bangladesh. South Asia is an understudied region in terms of platform regulation, even though the three countries in focus have seen a public debate on the matter unfolding for the past few years. The report aims to fill that research gap, analyzing “(a) the intermediary liability framework governing social media platforms; (b) the relevant cybersecurity and other information and communication technology (ICT) regulations; and (c) key speech laws (mostly penal) applicable to end-users.” Case studies show that in Sri Lanka, India, and Bangladesh, social media governance relies on control of the online information flow, with its practices being internet shutdowns, content blocking, and online speech criminalization. There is a growing centralization of power in all three countries and an absence of functioning parliamentary and court oversight over executive decisions that restrict speech.

How should states approach the regulation of AI to ensure the new technologies strengthen democracy rather than undermine it? Addressing this question, the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) drafted an AI policy framework tailored for the states in the region. The document centers on the right to freedom of expression, drawing from Article 9 of the ACHPR, Article 19 of the UDHR, Article 19 of the ICCPR, and the right to privacy as it is enshrined in Article 12 of the UDHR and Article 17 of the ICCPR. MISA structures the framework in five parts, concluding with “Operationalisation of Human Rights and Ethics,” which breaks down several steps for states and companies to undertake for the protection of users’ rights.

PEN America has been documenting book banning in the United States since 2021 and recently recorded a staggering number – 4,349 instances of book bans took place between July and December 2023, a leap from 1,841 recorded in the preceding semester. This new report, however, goes beyond the numbers. Providing data, the authors also focus on what often stays hidden behind it: the stories in the books under attack and of librarians, teachers, students, and writers affected. The most targeted narratives are those on sexual violence, LGBTQ+ themes (transgender identities in particular), and race and racism. But despite the gravity of the situation, there is hope. The report shows resistance to book banning is growing nationwide, and students are at the forefront.

Access Now published the annual report of the #KeepItOn coalition on internet shutdowns in 2023. The coalition unites more than 300 civil society organizations, rights and advocacy groups, think tanks, media outlets, and other groups from around the world working to end internet shutdowns. In bright visuals easy to grasp, the report shows 2023 has been the worst year in internet access disruptions since 2016, when the #KeepItOn campaign was launched. The coalition recorded at least 283 internet shutdowns in 2023 (compared with 201 in 2022), and at least 80 of them affected entire regions or countries. The year’s leading trigger for internet shutdowns (at least 74 recorded ones in 9 countries) was conflict; at least 173 internet shutdowns corresponded with violence.

The report, released by SMEX, a non-profit advancing digital rights across West Asia and North Africa (WANA), examines the moderation of content on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) on social media in the WANA region. In this context, the study looks at content moderation policies and their practical application by Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, and YouTube. The authors turned to desk research, internal consultations, a survey in which regional SRHR organizations and activists participated, in-depth interviews with some survey respondents, and policy assessments based on the Ranking Digital Rights methodology. Documenting multiple episodes of SRHR content censorship, the report builds its critique on several levels – from the absence of SRHR-tailored policies to the “vague grounds” for posts’ removal and content in Arabic being subject to stricter restrictions than comparable content in English. The report concludes with recommendations for platforms.

PEN America has published the fifth edition of its Freedom to Write Index, an annual report on the detention and imprisonment of writers globally. The number of writers behind bars reached its highest – at least 339 – in 2023. The top jailers are China, with 107 writers in prison, and Iran, with 49 writers deprived of liberty, detaining more female writers than any other country. Amidst war and freedom of expression crackdown, Israel and Russia made it to the top 10 jailers’ list for the first time. Analyzing changes in trends since 2019, the Index registered an increase in online commentators as a targeted professional designation: bloggers and other writers publishing their work on social media make up the majority of those detained. The report concludes with recommendations to the 10 most expression-restrictive governments, states that commit to upholding freedom of expression, donors, and UN special procedures.

7amleh, the Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, published a study on Palestinian digital rights and the global impact of EU legislation - the Digital Services Act (DSA) in particular. The study tackles the following questions: How does the DSA’s approach to hate speech and other harmful content affect the digital rights of Palestinians and advocates for Palestinian rights? What are the potential consequences of the DSA’s politicization by the EU in the Israel/Palestine context? What are the advantages and risks of the DSA for Palestinian digital rights? The study explains the DSA, interrogates its relevance for Palestinian digital rights, includes a case study of events that “​​worryingly point to the DSA having been applied with bias” in the timeframe starting from October 7, and concludes with recommendations addressing the EU institutions, civil society, and online platforms.

The report, published by ARTICLE 19, interrogates digital influence in Cambodia, Malaysia, Nepal, and Thailand. As China broadens the scope of its technology and partnerships in normalizing the “authoritarian approach to digital governance,” the study sets out to understand China’s digital superpower aspirations by unpacking its regional strategies. “This report shows that dual infrastructure and policy support from China, in the hands of authoritarian states, has contributed to increasing restrictions on freedom of expression and information, the right to privacy, and other acts of digital repression,” Michael Caster, ARTICLE 19’s Asia Digital Program Manager, comments. Defining the Digital Silk Road as an umbrella term for digital policies that are part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the report explains China’s domestic digital landscape, outlines the evolution of the country’s domestic and foreign digital policies, and offers case studies on the digital infrastructure and governance in each of the four focus countries. The report concludes with recommendations to governments, the internet freedom community, and the private tech sector.

A collaboration between the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), the paper interrogates political communication and media trust in the age of AI, along with possible technical and policy solutions. ISD Research Fellows Christian Schwieter and Milan Gandhi start by explaining generative AI systems and survey ways through which political actors have been resorting to AI tools. The report builds on the empirical analysis and tailors its insights for policymakers. One of the recommendations is to “[r]aise awareness of how seemingly non-political uses of generative AI can be exploited for politics, in particular the creation of non-consensual intimate content.” After evaluating emerging solutions, including legislation, the authors conclude with an emphasis on the importance of “restoring citizens’ trust in democratic institutions” and stress that technology regulation and reduction of disinformation are solutions of only a partial nature.

The Collaboration on International ICT Policy for East and Southern Africa (CIPESA) published guidelines tailored for the use of digital platforms at the time of elections. They aim to both mobilize the platforms’ positive potential and combat the spread of disinformation, hate speech, and online gender-based violence, among other possible harms. The Guidelines were adopted by the General Assembly of the Association of African Election Authorities in Cotonou, Benin, on 3 November 2023 and represent a “crucial normative framework” for the continent. Emphasizing obligations to preserve the rights to equality and non-discrimination, free and fair elections, freedom of expression, access to information, freedom of assembly, rights to privacy and remedy, protection of women’s rights, as well as ethnic, cultural, and linguistic rights, the Guidelines directly address states, election management bodies, social media, regulatory bodies, political parties, “African traditional institutions and religious bodies,” civil society, and journalists. The Guidelines are in Arabic, English, French, and Portuguese.

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) presents its submission to the Independent Expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity (IE SOGI). The IE SOGI’s thematic report for the UN Human Rights Council’s 56th session will explore how freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and freedom of association rights “relate to protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” The APC submission focuses on the digital sphere and includes inputs from civil society activists and organizations that review the following countries: India, Paraguay, Uganda, Botswana, Rwanda, South Africa, Indonesia, and Türkiye. Underscoring that “violence and discrimination initiated offline can be aggravated and perpetrated online, and vice versa,” the submission concludes with recommendations to governments and tech companies.

Published by Masaar, a community of lawyers and technologists advancing digital rights in Egypt, the article explains “the Fediverse” as a challenge to the concentration of Internet power in the hands of few tech companies. Two core ideas build the Fediverse: 1) decentralization and 2) federalism. The article dives into those and gives an overview of the Fediverse’s technological foundation, its philosophy, objectives, first application and evolution. The article also lists some of the networks currently running - Mastodon, PeerTube, Diaspora, and Pixelfed - and discusses the Fediverse’s future along with the challenges it entails, such as difficulty in attracting users, lack of sustainability guarantees, and security threats. The paper concludes on an optimistic note, encouraging Internet users to try a Fediverse application: “Building a free Internet is the only way for it to support its users’ rights and freedoms. Thus, tools like the Fediverse are very important for the future of the Internet and accordingly for the future of us all.”

The report, written by Nic Newman and published by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism with the support of the Google News Initiative, starts straightforwardly: it declares 2024 as “another challenging year ahead for journalism.” Artificial intelligence, the disruptions it delivers to the media sector, critical elections taking place around the world, and the continuing wars force journalists and media outlets “to rethink their role and purpose with some urgency.” Journalism content will face radical distribution changes due to Search Generative Experiences and AI-driven chatbots that will reduce media outlets’ audiences. The report includes findings from a survey conducted between November and December 2023 in which over 300 digital leaders from more than 50 countries and territories participated. Despite the grim forecasts, the report still offers ways for journalists and media to adapt, “Embracing the best of AI while managing its risks will be the underlying narrative of the year ahead.” In this podcast episode of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Nic Newman discusses the report’s findings and more.

The Centre for Media Pluralism and Media Freedom (CMPF) published a study of the so-called “news deserts” - areas that lack “sufficient, reliable, and diverse information from trustworthy media sources” - in Europe. The report results from an all-EU research project that assessed challenges and opportunities faced by local and community media outlets in the 27 Member States. The CMPF methodology includes such indicators as economic and political conditions, local journalists’ safety, the degree of media’s inclusiveness towards minorities and marginalized groups, and engagement with the audience. The report concludes with recommendations for the EU, Member States’ national and local authorities, media organizations, journalists, scholars, and other stakeholders. CMPF highlights an urgent issue to address - “the lack of data related to the economic and financial information for both local and community media, as well as locally focused audience measurements and more detailed research on trust, audience perspectives, perceptions and engagement within local media markets.”

Access Now published a report that explains what role internet shutdowns and service disruptions play in the investigations of international crimes. With the case law on international criminal liability in relation to internet shutdowns and service disruptions being meager, Access Now highlights one ruling only - the 2011 ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I decision in the Situation in Libya case - and marks the decision’s significance as the ICC acknowledged shutdowns' relevance. Yet, the report notes the decision is “insufficient to deter authorities from shutting down internet and telecommunications services during conflicts and civil unrest.” Access Now calls on “courts with jurisdiction over international crimes (i) to examine the precedent set by the ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I in the Situation in Libya, and (ii) to give due consideration to shutdowns and disruptions of internet and telecommunications services in evaluating the cases brought before them.