Print A soldier patrols the streets ahead of planned anti-government protests during a COVID-19 outbreak in Harare, Zimbabwe on July 30, 2020. Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters
Blog Post
Blog posts represent the views of CFR fellows and staff and not those of CFR, which takes no institutional positions.
A cursory glance at recent headlines from Zimbabwe could give one the impression that things are looking up. A recent World Bank report predicted growth of nearly 4 percent this year. The government took a small first step toward compensating farmers whose land was violently seized by the state decades ago. But closer inspection reveals a country with tremendous structural challenges and a government focused only on regime survival.
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Restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic have increased threats to press freedom in the region, raising questions over how to respond.
Government attempts to control the narrative of the COVID-19 pandemic and restrict the media under the guise of public health have created a crisis of information integrity, argue watchdog groups. The problem is particularly acute in Central and Eastern Europe, where press freedoms are shrinking as authoritarianism rises, and public trust in media is declining. International organizations are grappling with how to reverse these trends.
How has the pandemic impacted media freedom in Central and Eastern Europe?
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Print Anti-Thai government protester throws a liquid during a clash with riot police after protesters showed up at a rally for Myanmar s democracy outside the embassy, in Bangkok, Thailand on February 1, 2021. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
Blog Post
Blog posts represent the views of CFR fellows and staff and not those of CFR, which takes no institutional positions.
I review Freedom House’s latest report on the fortunes of democracy, delve into the three major international forces exacerbating the global decline in freedom, and consider what might be done to reverse the autocratic tide.
A raging pandemic, an absent America and an emboldened China have exacerbated an ongoing global democratic recession. That is the message of “Freedom in the World 2021,” Freedom House’s latest status report on the fortunes of democracy. During 2020, democracy retreated for the 15th consecutive year, deteriorating in 73 countries and improving in only 28 a record margin
Polling data shows [PDF] that a majority of Americans do indeed favor increased regulation of social media. But reactions to the moves by Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and others to limit Trump’s social media access have followed a familiar partisan split. An ongoing debate about how much governments should regulate social media and what the boundaries are (or should be) between free speech and incitement to hatred and violence has been made more pressing by the events of January 6.
This same debate is underway in sub-Saharan Africa, where social media is of growing importance and other types of media are weak or even absent. In some states trending toward authoritarianism or worse Uganda, Tanzania, and Ethiopia, for example regimes seek to limit social media to enhance their power by muzzling the opposition. But in others, especially those riven by ethnic and religious conflict, there is legitimate concern that media, now including social media, are a means to incite violence.