This Friday, the 3rd, when World Press Freedom Day is celebrated, Brazil has to celebrate a gain of ten positions in the ranking of the international organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which measures this freedom and has just been released .
The country rose, between 2023 and 2024, from 92nd position to 82nd in the ranking, although it remains among those with a “problematic” situation in relation to press freedom. In any case, it advanced 28 positions compared to 2022, when it was in 110th place.
The report attributes this advance to a “normalization of relations between state organizations and the press”, but considers that “structural violence against journalists, a media scenario marked by high private concentration and the weight of disinformation represent significant challenges for the advancement of press freedom in the country”.
In the last decade, Brazil was the second country in the Americas in terms of journalists killed, 30 in total, behind only Mexico, with exactly one hundred professionals murdered.
The ranking covers 180 countries, and only 25% of them present a situation considered “good” (eight countries) or “relatively good” (37) in relation to press freedom.
The leadership is for the eighth consecutive year in Norway. Russia, which has lost positions since the start of the offensive against Ukraine, is in 162nd place. “Almost all independent media outlets have been banned, blocked and/or declared ‘foreign agents’ or ‘unwanted organizations’. All others are subject to military censorship,” writes RSF in the Russian context. Ukraine is in 61st place.
Israel also fell in the ranking and is in 101st position. Since the start of the war in Gaza, on October 7, 2023, according to RSF, more than a hundred journalists have been killed at the hands of the Israeli army in the Palestinian enclave. Palestine, precisely because it is the scene of these deaths, in addition to countless arrests, is in 157th place.
In the United States, which fell ten places to 55th, there is “growing distrust in the media, fueled especially by the open hostility of political leaders, some of whom do not hesitate to call for the arrest of journalists. On several occasions, local police officers improperly searched newsrooms and arrested journalists.”
Peru is one of the worst cases in the Americas, with the conditions for the practice of journalism “deteriorating as the political system becomes increasingly opaque”, and, as a result, the drop of 48 positions in two years, putting the country ranks 125th in the world in press freedom.
On Journalist’s Day, celebrated every April 7, the Agência Assembleia de Notícias analyzed other figures relating to press freedom and violence against journalists, both globally and in Brazilian regions. After three years as the region with the most violence against journalists, the Central-West is now in third place.
Focal point
In Brazil, the current focal point of discussions on press freedom focuses on the issues of freedom, responsibility and transparency on the internet, the theme of the Federal Law no.O 2630/20. After provoking great debates, the project will not be voted on in the Plenary, announced the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira (PP-AL) at the beginning of April, announcing the creation of a working group to debate a new project to regulate social media.
The project nO 2630/23, stated the president of the Chamber, was “the target of narratives proposing censorship and violation of freedom of expression”, which undermines its analysis, in addition to there being no consensus among deputies for the vote.
It is an extensive proposition, with 36 articles.
The art. 6th, in the general provisions section, states, for example, that “with the aim of protecting freedom of expression and access to information and promoting the free flow of ideas on the internet, providers of social networks and private messaging services , within the scope and technical limits of their service, must adopt measures to: I – prohibit the operation of inauthentic accounts; II – prohibit automated accounts not identified as such, understood as those whose automated nature was not communicated to the application provider and, publicly, to users; and III – identify all promoted and advertising content whose distribution was carried out through payment to the social media provider”.
It is explicit that these prohibitions “will not imply restrictions on artistic, intellectual expression or satirical, religious, political, fictional or literary content, or any other form of cultural manifestation, under the terms of arts. 5th, item IX, and 220 of the Federal Constitution”.
The aim was to identify, in the event of complaints, those responsible for the accounts, providing for art. 7th that “providers of social networks and private messaging services may request users and those responsible for the accounts, in case of reports of non-compliance with this Law, in the case of signs of automated accounts not identified as such, of signs of inauthentic accounts or even in cases of court order, confirming your identification, including through the presentation of a valid identity document”.
Other concerns were “limiting the number of forwardings of the same message to users or groups, as well as the maximum number of members per group” (art. 9, II) and “establishing a mechanism to assess the user’s prior consent for inclusion in message groups, broadcast lists or equivalent mechanisms for forwarding messages to multiple recipients” (art. 9, III).
The full project can be seen here.
Freedom and sustainability
When speaking about World Press Freedom Day in a speech this Thursday, the 2nd, the secretary-general of the United Nations (UN), António Guterres, focused on the topic of environmental emergency. “Local, national and global media can give visibility to stories about the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and environmental injustice,” he said.
“Media freedom is under siege. And environmental journalism is an increasingly dangerous profession”, he continued. “Dozens of journalists covering illegal mining, logging, poaching and other environmental issues have been killed in recent decades. In most cases, no one was held accountable.”
The secretary-general also points out that, according to a UNESCO report, in the last fifteen years, there have been around 750 attacks on journalists and media outlets reporting on environmental issues, and the frequency of these attacks has been increasing.
Guterres also drew attention to the high number of journalist deaths in Gaza and maintained that “a free press is not a choice, but a necessity”.
