The giant digital communication platforms are out of control.

The recent decision by Facebook owner Meta to remove its fact-checking filters is just one more sign of the uncontrolled information that is taking over the big social networks, without governments standing up to the power of the tycoons, who are now even part of the US administration.

The demeaning way they already act towards traditional media, stealing their content without respect for copyright, was more than enough for states governed by the rule of law to put these companies in check instead of the dubious and incapable legislation of, for example, the European Union.

This is an unequal fight, which crushes the traditional media and promotes disinformation, insulting, and hate speech.

The damage is already visible everywhere, and without moderation or rules and regulations like those for traditional media, we are going to have a ‘far west’ in global communication if it isn’t already in place.

As Volker Turk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, says, “carefully regulating hate speech online and moderating content to prevent real harm is not censorship; it is an essential pillar of integrity in the digital age and a responsibility of social media platforms.”

Newspapers such as “Diário dos Açores” and all other traditional media find themselves in this context of unequal combat.

If these media are not given sufficient resources to regulate true information, the public sphere will continue to be dominated by disinformation and hate campaigns, which social networks are fertile ground for.

As Josef Trappel, director of the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Salzburg and of the joint Erasmus Mundus Digital Communication and Leadership Master’s program, warned a few days ago, traditional media had a unique business model in the market, but with the unregulated emergence of platforms, this model is under threat.

And what does this international expert say?

Let’s see: “There is no magic solution to this, but we need to understand the process and then we can think of policies to adjust this process to the needs of a democracy” (…). “A need of democracy is that we have independent journalism. This is not done by the platforms at all; none of these platforms employs a single journalist.”

The professor points out that the platforms take journalistic content from journalistic websites and redistribute it to users, warning that if the source of journalism dries up, “there won’t be any journalism on the platforms at all in the future,” and that “is the danger.”

“In a democracy, “we need independent investigative journalism. In other words, we need to support the source of that kind of journalism and that support no longer comes entirely from the economy because the economy has changed,” he continues.

The researcher insists on the need for “new sources of revenue and income for investigative journalism,” which could include, among other things, “public subsidies from the state to support the journalism that is so important to the entire population.”

This debate is taking place today, as we can see, at a global level because it is an urgent need. Even in the Azores, we have arrived late and with some nonsensical and ignorant political voices on the subject, as we have just witnessed in the middle of a parliamentary debate.

Many Azorean newspapers, more than a hundred years old, have already disappeared from circulation, and those that still survive risk being ‘swallowed up’ in this unequal fight in which the media giants want to impose a single knowledge.

The “Diário dos Açores,” which celebrates its 155th anniversary today, continues in this fight with its meager resources, given its size. However, it remains intact, thanks to its readers, advertisers, and collaborators, always in the founding line of giving a voice to all and in defense of regional causes.

This edition reflects the pluralism of contributors, ideas, and different points of view from all political backgrounds, always in defense of Democracy and our Autonomy.

Here, the facts are verified and never denied. We obey the regulations of ethics and the values of tolerance, never hatred, insult, or disinformation.

That’s the difference, even in an unequal fight.

Thank you for your trust!

Osvaldo Cabral is the Executive Director of Diário dos Açores.

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from various leading thinkers, writers, and editorial boards from the Azores to give the diaspora and those interested in the current Azores a sense of the significant opinions on some of the archipelago’s issues.

Translated to English as a community outreach program from the Portuguese Beyond Borders Institute (PBBI) and the Modern and Classical Languages and Literatures Department (MCLL).