An man holds a fake news sign during a President Donald Trump campaign rally in Washington Township, Mich., in April 2018. | Paul Sancya/AP Photo Trump's 'fake news' rhetoric crops up around the globe

Press freedom advocates highlighted fresh examples on Monday showing how they believe President Donald Trump's anti-media rhetoric has given foreign dictators a framework to crack down on free expression.

Over the weekend, New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger said that he warned the U.S. leader about the effect of his “inflammatory language” abroad. The disclosure came after Trump tweeted about his July 20 meeting with Sulzberger, saying, “Spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, “Enemy of the People.”


Sulzberger responded in the Times that he used the meeting to warn Trump that his rhetoric “is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence,” particularly overseas.

Since Trump took office, foreign leaders have used “fake news” to justify suppressing speech they don’t like. Just in the last month, Egypt passed a “fake news” law criminalizing the spread of false information, while authorities in Vietnam reportedly suspended and fined local news website Tuoi Tre Online following accusations of spreading false news.

Joel Simon, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said he would not have hard numbers until his group publishes its year-end census of jailed journalists, but anecdotally, he has observed the trend spreading.

“It’s a constant refrain,” Simon said. “You hear all sorts of autocratic leaders from all over the world who are upset about media coverage framing it as fake news.”

The White House did not respond to request for comment. But there have been examples of Trump’s “fake news” claims popping up all over the world in recent months.

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• Just four days before Trump and Sulzberger met, Egypt passed its “fake news” law, which also declares that any social media account or blog with more than 5,000 followers will be treated as a media outlet.

The law also grants Egypt’s Supreme Council power to suspend or block existing websites, impose fines on editors, and requires websites to obtain a license to operate.

Even before the law, Egypt had used “fake news” charges aggressively: On July 4, an Egyptian prosecutor charged at least eight journalists with spreading false information, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, adding to at least 11 other journalists currently detained.

• In June, the Belarusian legislature amended its media laws to allow the government to prosecute anyone suspected of spreading false information online.

• In April, authorities in Kazakhstan raided the offices of the Kazakh Forbes Magazine and news website Ratel.kz, citing concerns about libel. According to Reporters Without Borders, as part of the raids, Kazakh authorities also blocked Ratel.kz and briefly detained four journalists.

• Russia, long known known for its crackdowns on the press, added another tool to its belt in April, passing a law that allows the government to block websites that publish defamatory information against public figures, like President Vladimir Putin, as reported by The Moscow Times. A week ago, Russian lawmakers proposed a law that would hold social media networks responsible for the accuracy of user comments.

• In late March, Malaysia passed a law outlawing fake news, punishable by up to six years of jail time. A month later, a Danish citizen was convicted of inaccurately criticizing the government on Twitter.

• Singapore, long known for suppressing free speech, is also working to enact a fake news law.

Simon said that he was particularly concerned by the Times’ report that Trump appeared to express pride in the spread of the phrase “fake news” and the fact that other countries have passed laws banning it. Sulzberger said in his Times interview that he replied that those countries were authoritarian and using the laws to avoid the type of accountability provided by a free press.

“You would think President Trump would be embarrassed by this, but he seemed to take pride,” Simon said.

Margaux Ewen, the executive director of Reporters Without Borders North America, said in an email, “As an international press freedom organization monitoring press freedom worldwide, we absolutely share Sulzberger's concerns of Trump's rhetoric's negative impact on press freedom and journalist safety at home and abroad.”

She noted that the group’s 2018 World Press Freedom Index, published in April, highlighted this trend — and also downgraded the United States to 45th in its rankings as a result of Trump’s rhetoric, which, across the globe, she said, “seemed to correlate with an increase in arrests and physical attacks/harassment at the local level.”

Ewen said she was also troubled by the Times report of Trump’s apparent approval of fake-news laws.

“RSF finds it deeply troubling that the American president would think that laws that include jail terms for journalists on the basis of ‘fake news’ or some variation of the notion of false information are a good thing,” she said, “when they so clearly aim to impede the work of investigative journalism and prevent those in power from being held accountable.”

Simon said he found it ironic that, on Monday morning, the White House issued a statement condemning repressive measures by President Daniel Ortega’s regime in Nicaragua, citing “the suppression of civil society, opposition parties, and independent media.”

“You really can’t have it both ways,” Simon said. “There’s nothing that Daniel Ortega would like to do more than ban what he perceives as fake news.”

