Having quietly killed free speech in Europe, several European governments are now zeroing in on independent media and journalists to end the free flow of information.
Banning independent media outlets and journalists directly would not work: it would just give the game away. Instead, softer, more indirect ways to get rid of alternative and independent media have been devised.
In Germany a draft bill has been put on the table that will, if all 16 federal states pass it, require big tech platforms to manipulate the algorithms in such a way that at least 20% of algorithmic recommendations for content must come from media outlets approved by German authorities. The point, we are told, is “diversity” – because nothing quite screams “diversity” like state-approved media.
Germany’s state-funded broadcasters, such as ARD, ZDF and Deutschland Radio, are automatically qualified, whereas “private outlets would have to apply to Germany’s 14 regional media authorities, which decide who receives it,” according to the news website Brussels Signal.
According to ReMix, “The proposed measure is already being slammed as a state-mandated propaganda effort that would force German citizens to view content friendly to the ruling establishment parties.”
Germany, in short, is introducing a system that will effectively ban independent journalism by using a state-imposed algorithm to force its extinction, while giving priority to state-approved content from corporate legacy media, which by virtue of its size and funding already plays an outsized role.
That is not all. Germany is reportedly planning to empower regional media authorities to conduct “indiscriminate mass surveillance” of online media, podcasts, and videos using tools such as AI, even when no complaint has been lodged. The aim, according to German news website Nius:
“The new law would empower media authorities to automatically monitor new media on platforms like YouTube, X, and Instagram and to penalize alleged violations of journalistic standards. This would effectively elevate one authority to a media control body — a move that would open the floodgates to political censorship. In the past, state media authorities have repeatedly taken action against media outlets they deemed undesirable.
“Even today, state media authorities use AI to scan the internet – officially in the name of protecting minors. In doing so, they repeatedly stumble upon statements they deem criminal, such as potential insults or incitement to hatred. In 2025 alone, the media authorities had around 4,000 posts deleted based on this information.
“What’s new is that media authorities will no longer only be able to prosecute illegal or harmful content without cause, but will also be required to automatically monitor compliance with journalistic standards of due diligence.”
It does not get much more totalitarian than that.
In the United Kingdom, the government is so concerned that too many people refuse to let themselves be brainwashed by state-approved legacy media that it is devising Orwellian plans to force them to consume it:
“Today (23 June) the government has published a Green Paper, Watch this Space: A new strategic direction for UK media, to consult on options to require social media companies and video sharing platforms to make sure that news content from public service media (PSM), which includes the BBC, ITV, STV, Channel 4, S4C and 5, and other trustworthy providers, is prominent and easy to find on their platforms. It could include, for example, a range of national and local news publishers all being more likely to be at the top of people’s social media feeds when they search for news. This will be key for helping to tackle mis- and disinformation, particularly during times of social unrest or crisis.”
Now we know why the government wants Big Tech to boost and prioritize public service media – because it really is state propaganda media.
According to recent reporting by The Telegraph, the UK government has been infiltrating so-called “public service” media with state-employed bureaucrats, who have been planted in these media organizations, including BBC, ITV and Channel 4, as supposed fact-checkers and journalists.
The state bureaucrats were embedded “to produce news and analysis on ‘high-impact, sensitive topics’ such as small boat crossings and the Covid pandemic” and to work on “verifying and preparing news bulletins.” According to The Telegraph‘s investigation, dozens of civil servants from government departments including the Home Office and Ministry of Justice had taken part since the scheme first launched in 2018.
Even more unsettling is reportedly that senior civil servants in the government’s employ were “lent to the broadcasters during general elections to dissect party manifestos and verify figures brought up in live debates.”
These ostensible “public service” media organizations, in short, functioned as organs of state propaganda, especially during elections.
Prof. Carl Heneghan, Director of the University of Oxford’s Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, expressed concern over government employees working on coverage of Covid:
“Not only does it undermine the trust, it goes to the heart of the editorial problem. If you have people writing for you with competing interests, it won’t be impartial. It is the government organisation you will be partial to. You will want to toe the line. It’s unacceptable. This is a huge issue… If government employees are writing for the BBC it should be explicit who they work for so the reader can judge for themselves.”
The Telegraph described how one government employee had been tasked with “fact-checking claims about crime rates among different nationalities that were dominating news cycles”, for which he “drafted an explainer piece which went online and copy for my boss who went on the radio to provide this much needed context for audiences”.
It is not news that the BBC is a master of manipulation and disinformation. According to an internal BBC whistleblower memorandum from November 2025, the BBC doctored a speech by US President Donald J. Trump to make him appear to encourage the January 6, 2021 US Capitol riot “by splicing together footage from the start of his speech with something he said nearly an hour later.”
It is also not news that the BBC, in the words of The Telegraph, “has become a tool for promoting anti-Israel bias,” and, “[i]ts flawed journalism is adding fuel to the fire of anti-Semitism that is glowing ever more dangerously.”
The news here is that government employees, for eight years, have been part of all this. How much of the manipulation and disinformation has been pushed by the British state? One-third of it? Half of it? All of it? Does the British public not deserve to know?
While this story has been embarrassingly underreported outside the UK, it ought to raise serious questions in every Western country about its own public service media — and who actually runs it.