Poland: Media goes offline for 24 hours to protest ad tax
Polish news outlets are protesting a proposed tax on ads that critics say authorities will use to undermine press freedom. Government officials claim that the tax will boost health care spending during the pandemic.
A number of Polish media outlets staged a protest against a new tax on advertisements
Independent media outlets in Poland suspended news coverage on Wednesday to protest a planned tax on advertising revenues.
Members of the media say the tax is an attempt to undermine press freedoms.
About 45 outlets joined the protest, including the country s leading newspaper,
Polish news outlets are protesting a proposed tax on ads that critics say authorities will use to undermine press freedom. Government officials claim that the tax will boost health care spending during the pandemic.
BBC News
Published
image captionGerman SS searching Jews in Warsaw in 1939
A Polish court has ordered two Holocaust historians to apologise to the niece of a dead village mayor, for having accused him of collaborating with the Nazis in World War Two.
Despite finding them guilty of defamation in a book, the Warsaw court did not order them to pay damages.
The World Holocaust Remembrance Centre, Yad Vashem, called the case a serious attack on free and open research .
Professors Barbara Engelking and Jan Grabowski can appeal.
It was a civil case brought against them by 80-year-old Filomena Leszczynska.
About six million Jews died in the Holocaust, half of them Polish Jews. Some 90% of Poland s pre-war Jewish community were killed.
2 Feb 2021
Poland’s new Freedom Act against Big Tech censorship will see members of the public automatically notified of “shadowbans” and empowered to overturn restrictions if their speech online is lawful.
Speaking exclusively to Breitbart News, Deputy Minister of Justice Sebastian Kaleta, who is spearheading the new legislation, confirmed that “every time an algorithm is used to limit reach, the user will be informed if and why his reach is being limited.”
The Polish government has previously confirmed that its new laws against tech censorship will give Polish citizens a statutory right to appeal against bans and content removal if their speech was lawful under the Polish constitution, with a new Free Speech Board able to order tech firms to restore removed accounts and content on pain of huge fines.
Police officers detain a demonstrator during a protest in support of the detained opposition figure Alexei Navalny, St Petersburg, Russia, 31 January 2021, Peter KovalevTASS via Getty Images January 2021 in Europe and Central Asia: A free expression round up produced by IFEX s Regional Editor Cathal Sheerin, based on IFEX member reports and news from the region.
January saw the arrest of Alexei Navalny spark massive protests across Russia and an incredibly brutal response by the authorities. It saw injustice continuing to flourish in Turkey and another blow against women in Poland. It was also a month of fairytales and aqua discos.
Record numbers arrested at Navalny-inspired protests