The “fake news” phenomenon and the accompanying discussion about its definition, sources and goals have become increasingly common in Finland over the past two years, but journalists and media experts say that a self-regulating media landscape and a reasonably high degree of public trust in the country’s media have provided much-needed resistance to negative effects. […]

The International Press Institute (IPI) today expressed concern over the extreme actions taken by Finnish police authorities following the release of a controversial article in the Helsingin Sanomat newspaper. Police searched the Helsinki home of Helsingin Sanomat journalist Laura Halminen late on Sunday night. Halminen is one of two authors of an article on the signals intelligence facility […]

Finnish journalist Linda Pelkonen can still remember the feeling of fear. “I thought these people were out of their minds and that they would come and find me,” she said, recounting a wave of online harassment against her in 2015 in a recent interview with the International Press Institute (IPI). So Pelkonen could empathise strongly […]

In voting last month to repeal their country’s centuries-old blasphemy law, Danish lawmakers joined a growing trend in Europe toward securing free speech on matters related to religion. A comprehensive IPI study on criminal defamation and insult laws published in March by the Representative on Freedom of the Media of the Organization for Security and […]