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What Threatens Press Freedom Today?

Transparency is the missing ingredient in large media platforms today, with everyone in the dark about how proprietary algorithms sort people and prioritize messages. This should not lead us to condemn all social media, but we should be sensitive to how owners and authoritarians use them.

BERLIN – Donald Trump’s presidency was bookended by the White House pushing “alternative facts” about the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration at the US Capitol and his violent supporters scrawling “Murder the Media” on the Capitol’s doors. While Trump is gone (for now), professional media remain at risk – and not just in the United States. The watchdog group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) considers the state of press freedom “good” in a mere 12 countries – fewer than ever before.

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