European media outlets on alert: Freedom of speech under serious threat in the Old World

Freedom of speech in Europe is under serious threat. This is what was the key point in the statements voiced both by politicians and journalists at the European Newspaper Congress in Vienna.

Austrian Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said at the Congress opening that freedom of speech is essential for the European community, however, today it has faced with certain challenges.

Notably, on May 28 Austria's federal president Alexander Van der Bellen sacked the country's government led by Sebastian Kurz.

Sebastian Kurz, Chancellor of Austria

According to him, one of the main threats is social networks that provide people with access to a wider audience and freedom of expression. The Federal Chancellor noted in particular that some irresponsible politicians can now abuse the opportunities provided by social networks to achieve their nefarious goals, including the dissemination of radical statements. "I have been actively engaged in politics for 15 years now, and I can confirm that that at present the tone of political and journalistic discussions has become more vicious and aggressive," Kurz said. He stressed that Europe is at the point of losing its political and media culture and also noted that it is necessary to maintain politeness in the name of effective cooperation.

In addition, Kurz urged the European countries for more equitable taxation of big IT-companies that pay taxes several times less than traditional  companies do.

Philipp Welte, board Hubert Burda Media

Member of the Board of Directors of one of the largest media holdings in Europe - Hubert Burda Media, Philipp Welte also built his speech on the dangers of the threat of freedom of expression in Europe. He expressed concern that the elections to the European Parliament could lead to the victory of Eurosceptics, who do not always share the values of freedom of speech. Welte reminded about Italian politics Matteo Salvini, who is always negative about journalists and threatens their rights. "We observe the end of the values that were passed to us by our parents," Welte warned.

According to Welte, Facebook, Google won an economic victory over the traditional publishing business in the current conditions of unequal competition, and this situation requires adjustment of the EU policy in this area. He noted that the annual income of Facebook in Europe alone reaches 1.2 billion euros, while all the traditional media earn a total of 950 million euros.

According to the publisher, the traditional media outlets provide reliable information and are responsible before the law, and social networks have actually assumed the function of media, however do not bear any responsibility for the dissemination of unverified data. As a result, fake news gets more 'likes' and audience attention in FB than reliable ones.

Igor Trosnikov and Elizaveta Golikova, heads of RBC

He called for reforms in the interests of freedom of speech and against large corporations from the United States, which "occupied the media space of Europe."

In general, the topic of fake news has become one of the most discussed issues at the meeting of European publishers in recent years, as one of the main threats to freedom of speech, challenges for contemporary media. In particular, the media world has faced a new term – clickbait, in other words the web content, which uses sensational headlines or attractive images to increase the number of clicks and encourage the dissemination of materials through the Internet, especially, social networks, in order to generate income from online advertising.

Thus, Romanian publisher Sorin Tudor, made an extensive report on how the pursuit of clicks to attract advertising, the "need" for being popular in social networks have led to a huge influx of fake news. He stressed that the purpose of clickbait is not to convey the meaning of any incident or event, but to convince the maximum number of users to visit the page containing the material.

A panel discussion with George Sharashidze, Editor-in-Chief Georgia Today, Sergii Golovnov, Editor-in-Chief Business censor.net, Murad Aliyev, Editor-in-Chief Report News Agency, Dmitry Kolezev, Editor-in-Chief Znak.com, Denis Krivosheyev, Blogger

The leaders of the Russian RBK, Igor Trosnikov and Elizaveta Golikova noted in their presentation that analytics is not in demand in the clickbait world, unlike sensational news, materials that create the information rush but are of no value.

Golikova said that clickbait is a threat to traditional media, as the quality of traffic drops, the audience is "blurred", the brand becomes less influential: "Clickbait as a spreading epidemic, makes us spend more editorial resources on checking information. We have to create a separate unit to check the news that gets into the network."The topic of fake news continued by the discussions of media by captains from Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Georgia.

Notably, the sponsor of the European Publishing Congress in Vienna this year, as in previous years, was the company JTI (Japan Tobacco International). The participation of Azerbaijani journalists in the conference was made possible thanks to the support of the Azerbaijani representative office of the company.