While Zack Whittaker and I work to finish up a report on threats security researchers and journalists receive, there has been more and more news about threats to journalists and journalism. The arrests of Don Lemon and Geraldine Fort for reporting on a protest in a church could easily be construed as an obvious attempt to chill journalists from reporting on protests against ICE, despite attempts to couch it as protection of worshippers. In video comments, the U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said, “Make no mistake, under President Trump’s leadership and this administration, you have the right to worship freely and safely. And if I haven’t been clear already, if you violate that sacred right, we are coming after you.” So people have a First Amendment right to worship that DOJ will protect, but journalists suddenly have no First Amendment right to report on issues of public interest and concern? We disagree.
Arrests are an obvious warning to others, but there are many other types of threats journalists face. As one example, DataBreaches has previously reported on the use of a superinjunction from a UK court to try to censor reporting on data breaches, while SuspectFile, the work of Italian journalists Marco A. De Felice, followed up with their own post about the effects of that same superinjunction on them.
Injunctions, superinjunctions, and DMCA takedowns are just some types of lawfare to chill reporting. SLAPP suits are another type, and the following provides data on their use and misuse in the EU. Bertrand Borg reports:
Companies, entrepreneurs and politicians are increasingly leaning on the EU’s data protection rules to force journalists to back away from critical reporting about them, a new report has warned.
The report into SLAPP [Strategic Lawsuits and Against Public Participation] across Europe also notes that an EU-wide law intended to shield the media from such lawsuits must be bolstered if it is to work as intended.
Now in its fourth edition, the annual SLAPPs Report, prepared by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation on behalf of the Coalition Against SLAPPs in Europe (CASE), tracks reports of SLAPP cases across 29 European countries.
In 2024 alone, 167 new SLAPP cases were filed across those 29 jurisdictions. Italy led the pack with 21 new suits, followed by Germany (20) and Serbia (13).
Weaponising GDPR
More than two out of every three of those new SLAPP suits were filed by businesspeople or politicians. Most focused on reporting about alleged corruption and environmental issues.
While traditionally SLAPP cases leaned on defamation laws when making legal arguments, there is a growing trend for claimants citing GDPR-related ‘right to erasure’ provisions to try and force media houses to delete published stories.