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      Cambodia Strongman Hun Sen Wields Facebook to Undermine Democracy

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      The Cambodian People’s Party created its Cyber War Room about a decade ago. The goal was to support Prime Minister Hun Sen’s regime through social media propagandizing. Led by the prime minister’s son Hun Manet, a troll army used Facebook and other digital platforms to attack his father’s opposition with disinformation and even allegedly wield death threats.Fast forward to the Cambodian election taking place next month. The CPP’s Cyber War Room is back up and running. General Manet, commander of the Cambodian Army and most likely the country’s next prime minister, is reportedly back at the helm, this time defending his father’s legacy and himself.Facebook is extremely popular in Cambodia, with roughly 12 million of the country’s almost 17 million people on the site. Many people in Cambodia use Facebook as a core means of getting information, and social media platforms are critical for the few journalists still producing independent reporting. The populations of many other countries where governments have continually used social media for manipulation, including the Philippines and Turkey, rely heavily on Facebook as well. So why has state-sponsored trolling like this been allowed to endure for 10 years?It will come as no surprise when I say that Big Tech has a lot of problems on its plate, including fury about transnational digital propaganda campaigns, a global outcry about networked disinformation during the pandemic and panic about both real and hypothetic threats of generative A.I.But as one issue pops into the immediate view, the others don’t go anywhere. Instead, the global problems with our online information ecosystem compound. And while society and tech’s most powerful firms jump from one issue to the next, the abusive disinformation practices in places like Cambodia become entrenched. Governments refine their techniques, and opposition groups become less and less present because they are either trolled into submission, arrested, exiled or killed. It all benefits Big Tech, from Meta to Alphabet, which publicly seizes upon the idea du jour while cutting staffs and curbing efforts aimed at combating standing informational issues.What does this mean for the people of Cambodia? For a people who, in living memory, endured the horrors of genocide and totalitarianism?The Cambodian news ecosystem and the lives of Cambodians are controlled by Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has led them in some capacity for 38 years. He is quick to justify his long reign by pointing to economic gains before Covid — by which time the country achieved lower-middle-income status through tourism, textile exports and a growing relationship with China. His people have languished in many other ways, however: Environmental degradation is rife, corruption is commonplace, and human rights abuses are worsening.Mr. Sen and his cronies own or control all but the thinnest sliver of the country’s media outlets. They recently banned the main opposition party from running in the coming election because of an alleged clerical error. And curtailing speech on social media has been critical to the consolidation of their power. Facebook, Telegram and other platforms have been central to the CPP’s illicit, strategic and authoritarian control of Cambodia’s information space and, consequently, public opinion.Other despots have made use of highly organized state-sponsored trolling outfits to quash dissent. Some, like Mr. Sen, have also hired their kids to run them. In Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro’s Office of Hate, run by his sons, used social media to defame journalists and threaten opposition. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the autocrat recently re-elected as president of Turkey, benefited greatly from organized troll armies operating on Twitter. Back in Southeast Asia, the increasingly tyrannical regimes of Thailand, the Philippines and Myanmar have all deployed cyber-troops to do their oppressive bidding.Another factor is central to understanding why social media firms have failed to curb state-sponsored trolling around the globe: language.Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and other platforms have overwhelmingly focused their efforts to counter harmful and purposely misleading content in English. One reason is that they are based in the United States. Another is the malignant supremacy of Western concerns. But the larger reason is that social media companies cannot or will not supply the resources necessary to moderating content in other languages — particularly those such as Cambodia’s Khmer, which is complex and spoken by about 18 million people worldwide. That’s a small number when compared with the roughly 1.5 billion who speak English.This issue is a major problem for our own democracy too. During the 2020 and 2022 elections, social media platforms failed spectacularly in quashing hateful and disenfranchising content aimed at the tens of millions of Americans who speak Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog and a variety of other languages. This resulted in communities of color and groups already marginalized in our political system bearing the brunt of digital hate and purposely false information about these contests. According to my research and work with community leaders, this structural disinformation causes apathy, anger and civic disenchantment among minority voters, and as a result, many don’t show up to vote.The strength of global democracy is tied to the number of countries around the world that truly practice it. And while the leaders of relatively strong democracies like the United States obsess over information technology problems and political spectacle in Washington, they fail to do their duty to protect the less fortunate, both in their own country and elsewhere. This, in turn, lets social media companies off the hook.I recently returned from a lecture tour in Cambodia, where I spoke to more than 12 groups of professional journalists, citizen reporters, scholars, students and activists about the informational and political challenges they face online and offline. All told me that they still use platforms like Facebook and Telegram to coordinate, organize and share information about breaking news and elections.Facebook is especially popular in the country, in part because of its controversial Free Basics program, which offers free internet in a number of developing countries via a constrained number of websites (including, naturally, Facebook). Critics derided this as less a benevolent bid to connect the world and more a heavy-handed effort to “capture more of the market in the name of connectivity.” The promise of social media — that it can be the conduit for communication in countries with controlled media systems — remains true for the people I spoke to in Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville. But this potential is quickly dwindling as people lose faith in the safety of online communication. Meanwhile, Facebook remains a potent means for disseminating propaganda.If Meta, Alphabet and other tech firms do not take swift action to curb state-sponsored trolling, and if policymakers and civil society groups in the United States and other democracies don’t put more pressure on authoritarians like Hun Sen, then Cambodians and many others around the world will lose one of their last means of fighting back. We must speak out about the oppression surrounding the Cambodian election, which takes place on July 23 — and speak out about digital injustice.Samuel Woolley is the author of “Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity” and a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      José Rubén Zamora mostró la corrupción en Guatemala y enfrenta prisión

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      Durante años, elPeriódico denunció los manejos indebidos del gobierno. El juicio a su fundador se produce, aseguran los críticos, cuando la democracia en el país se desmorona.Para los activistas que defienden la libertad de prensa y los derechos humanos en Guatemala, el miércoles se perfila como un indicador clave de la tambaleante salud democrática del país.En un tribunal de la capital del país, se espera un veredicto en el juicio de uno de los periodistas más destacados de Guatemala, un caso ampliamente visto como otra señal del deterioro del estado de derecho en el país centroamericano.El periodista, José Rubén Zamora, fue el fundador y director de elPeriódico, un diario líder en Guatemala que investigaba con regularidad la corrupción gubernamental, incluidas las acusaciones contra el actual presidente, Alejandro Giammattei, y la fiscal general, María Consuelo Porras.Zamora es juzgado por cargos de irregularidades financieras que, según los fiscales, se centran en sus negocios y no en su periodismo. Un panel de jueces emitirá un veredicto y, si es declarado culpable, impondrá una sentencia.Una condena, que muchos observadores legales y el mismo Zamora dicen es el resultado probable, sería otro golpe a la frágil democracia de Guatemala, según los defensores de los derechos civiles, ya que el gobierno y sus aliados han apuntado repetidamente a instituciones clave y medios de comunicación independientes.El juicio también se produce cuando el país se dirige hacia una elección presidencial este mes que ha estado plagada de irregularidades, con cuatro candidatos de la oposición descalificados antes de la carrera.“El estado de derecho está roto”, dijo Ana María Méndez, directora para Centroamérica de WOLA, un instituto de investigación con sede en Washington. El caso de Zamora, agregó, representa “un paso más hacia la consolidación de una dictadura” en Guatemala.Sin embargo, a diferencia de otros países centroamericanos, como Nicaragua y El Salvador, donde la democracia también se ha erosionado, el poder en Guatemala no se concentra en una familia o un individuo, dijo Méndez.En Guatemala, agregó, “el autoritarismo se ejerce por redes ilícitas que están conformadas por la élite económica, la élite militar y el crimen organizado en contubernio con la clase política”.Zamora, de 66 años, ha negado repetidamente haber actuado mal y acusó al gobierno de tratar de silenciar a sus críticos.“Soy un preso político”, dijo a los periodistas el 2 de mayo, el día en que comenzó su juicio. Señaló que esperaba que el proceso termine con un veredicto de culpabilidad y agregó: “Me van a sentenciar”.Durante su cargo al frente de elPeriódico, Zamora fue demandado decenas de veces, principalmente por difamación, por parte del gobierno como resultado de la cobertura del diario.Las máquinas prensa guardaban silencio el mes pasado en las oficinas de elPeriódico en Ciudad de Guatemala. El periódico cerró después de que el gobierno congelara sus finanzas.Simone Dalmasso para The New York TimesPero su enfrentamiento legal más serio con las autoridades se inició en julio pasado, cuando fue acusado de lavado de dinero, tráfico de influencias y chantaje.Como parte del caso de la fiscalía, las cuentas bancarias de elPeriódico fueron congeladas, lo que dificultó su economía antes de que cerrara sus puertas definitivamente el mes pasado.El principal testigo del caso fue un exbanquero, Ronald Giovanni García Navarijo, quien dijo a los fiscales que Zamora le pidió que lavara 300.000 quetzales guatemaltecos, o casi 40.000 dólares. También afirmó que Zamora lo había obligado a pautar publicidad de paga anual en el periódico para evitar recibir una cobertura poco halagüeña.Pero la acusación no presentó ninguna prueba que demostrara que Zamora hubiera obtenido el dinero de manera ilegal. La mayor parte de los fondos, que según Zamora eran para pagar los salarios de los empleados del periódico, provenían de un empresario que no quería que se revelara su conexión con elPeriódico por temor a represalias.Su defensa se vio obstaculizada por varias medidas tomadas por los fiscales y una organización de extrema derecha que apoya al fiscal general, la Fundación Contra el Terrorismo, que según los críticos ha tratado de intimidar a algunos de los abogados de Zamora.Pasó por nueve abogados defensores, y al menos cuatro han sido acusados ​​de obstrucción de la justicia por su papel en el caso.“La defensa de Zamora se ha visto obstaculizada desde el primer día por una puerta giratoria de abogados defensores”, dijo Stephen Townley, director legal de la iniciativa TrialWatch de la Fundación Clooney para la Justicia, un grupo defensor de derechos. “Cuatro de sus abogados han sido procesados ​​por las autoridades guatemaltecas. Otros parecían no tener acceso a los materiales de sus predecesores”.Un juez que había estado presidiendo el caso anteriormente no permitió que Zamora presentara ningún testigo y rechazó la mayoría de las pruebas que trató de presentar por considerarlas irrelevantes.“Hemos visto un montaje’’, dijo Zamora en una entrevista, “como un teatro de terror”.El hijo de Zamora, José Carlos Zamora, quien también es periodista, calificó el juicio como “una persecución política”.Por su parte, Giammattei, refiriéndose al caso contra Zamora, ha dicho que ser periodista no le da a una persona el “derecho a cometer actos criminales”.El presidente Alejandro Giammattei se encontraba entre las principales figuras guatemaltecas investigadas por el periódico de Zamora.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesAun así, su gobierno ha sido acusado por grupos de derechos humanos de usar el sistema de justicia para atacar a cualquiera que lo desafíe.Los casos de corrupción y derechos humanos se han estancado y el sistema de justicia ha sido “secuestrado” por una red de actores corruptos, según un informe de WOLA.Desde 2021, casi tres decenas de jueces, fiscales anticorrupción y sus abogados han huido de Guatemala, al igual que 22 periodistas que dijeron haber sido amenazados por su trabajo.Cuando se fundó elPeriódico en 1996, Guatemala estaba entrando en un período más esperanzador luego de una brutal guerra civil que duró casi cuatro décadas y dejó cientos de miles de muertos o desaparecidos. Para muchos guatemaltecos agotados, existía la sensación de que la democracia se estaba afianzando y que el gobierno gobernaría con transparencia.Un panel internacional de investigadores respaldado por la ONU trabajó 12 años junto con el poder judicial de Guatemala para exponer la corrupción en la élite del país, incluidos altos funcionarios gubernamentales y empresarios, antes de ser expulsado del país en 2019 por el presidente anterior, a quien el panel estaba investigando.“Lo que vemos hoy es un sistema que quiere seguir protegiendo esa clase de prácticas”, dijo Daniel Haering, analista político en Ciudad de Guatemala.El caso de Zamora y la desaparición de su periódico hacen retroceder los esfuerzos para hacer que el gobierno rinda cuentas por sus acciones, dijo Méndez.“¿Quién va a decir ahora la verdad en Guatemala?”, dijo. “Quedará un vacío enorme”.Zamora con su abogada el día de la apertura de su juicio el mes pasado. No se le permitió presentar ningún testigo ni la mayor parte de las pruebas en su defensa.Santiago Billy/Associated PressEl juicio de Zamora termina cuando el país se prepara para las elecciones nacionales del 25 de junio, que según los grupos de derechos civiles ya se han visto empañadas después de que los jueces en los últimos meses prohibieron la participación a cuatro candidatos presidenciales de partidos de oposición.Entre ellos estaba Carlos Pineda, un populista conservador, que se había comprometido a luchar contra la corrupción y que, según una encuesta reciente, había ascendido a puntero. El tribunal supremo de Guatemala lo retiró de la contienda por acusaciones de que los métodos que usó el partido de Pineda para elegirlo como su candidato habían violado la ley electoral.El caso de Zamora también ha entrampado a los periodistas simplemente por cubrirlo. Ocho reporteros, editores y columnistas están siendo investigados por obstrucción a la justicia tras escribir sobre el proceso para elPeriódico. La mayoría se ha ido de Guatemala.Desde que Giammattei asumió el cargo en enero de 2020, el Asociación de Periodistas de Guatemala ha documentado 472 casos de hostigamiento, agresiones físicas, intimidación y censura contra la prensa.“De inmediato te preguntas: ‘¿En qué momento mis coberturas son interpretadas como un delito?’”, dijo Claudia Méndez, quien trabajó en elPeriódico como reportera y editora y ahora conduce un programa de radio. “‘¿En qué momento mi labor es ya no un ejercicio de crítica y rendición de cuentas, sino visto como un acto ilícito?’”. More

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      He Exposed Corruption in Guatemala. Now He Faces Prison.

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      The trial of José Rubén Zamora, the founder of a newspaper that long shone a spotlight on government graft, comes as critics say democracy in Guatemala is crumbling.For activists defending press freedom and human rights in Guatemala, Wednesday looms as a key gauge of the country’s wobbly democratic health.In a courtroom in the country’s capital, a verdict is expected in the trial of one of Guatemala’s most high-profile journalists, a case widely seen as another sign of the deteriorating rule of law in the Central American country.The journalist, José Rubén Zamora, was the founder and publisher of elPeriódico, a leading newspaper in Guatemala that regularly investigated government corruption, including accusations involving the current president, Alejandro Giammattei, and the attorney general, María Consuelo Porras.He stands trial on charges of financial wrongdoing that prosecutors say focus on his business dealing and not his journalism. A panel of judges will deliver a verdict and, if he is found guilty, will impose a sentence.A conviction, which many legal observers and Mr. Zamora himself say is the likely outcome, would be another blow to Guatemala’s already fragile democracy, according to civil rights advocates, as the government and its allies have taken repeated aim at key institutions and independent news media outlets.The trial also comes as the country heads toward a presidential election this month that has already been plagued by irregularities, with four opposition candidates disqualified ahead of the race.“The rule of law is broken,” said Ana María Méndez, the Central America director at WOLA, a Washington-based research institute. Mr. Zamora’s case represents, she added, yet another “step toward the consolidation of a dictatorship” in Guatemala.Unlike other Central American countries, like Nicaragua and El Salvador, where democracy has also eroded, however, power is not concentrated in a family or an individual, Ms. Méndez said.In Guatemala, she added, “authoritarianism is exercised by illicit networks made up of the economic elite, the military elite and organized crime in collusion with the political class.”Mr. Zamora, 66, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing and accused the government of trying to silence its critics.“I am a political prisoner,” he told reporters on May 2, the day his trial started. He said he fully expected it would end with a guilty verdict, adding, “I will be sentenced.”During his tenure running elPeriódico, Mr. Zamora was sued scores of times, mostly for slander, by the government as a result of the newspaper’s coverage.The presses were silent last month at the elPeriódico newspaper offices in Guatemala City. The newspaper shut down last month after the government froze its finances.Simone Dalmasso for The New York TimesBut his most serious legal confrontation with authorities was set in motion last July, when he was charged with money laundering, influence peddling and blackmail.As part of the prosecution’s case, elPeriódico’s bank accounts were frozen, hobbling its finances before it finally closed its doors for good last month.The main witness in the case was a former banker, Ronald Giovanni García Navarijo, who told prosecutors that Mr. Zamora asked him to launder 300,000 Guatemalan quetzales, or nearly $40,000. He also claimed that Mr. Zamora had forced him to place annual paid advertising in the newspaper to avoid receiving unflattering coverage.But the prosecution did not present any evidence showing that Mr. Zamora had obtained the money illegally. Most of the funds, which Mr. Zamora has said was to pay the salaries of the newspaper’s employees, had come from a businessman who did not want his connection to elPeriódico disclosed for fear of reprisals.His defense was hampered by various steps taken by prosecutors and a far-right organization that supports the attorney general, the Foundation Against Terrorism, which critics say has tried to intimidate some of Mr. Zamora’s lawyers.He cycled through nine defense lawyers, and at least four have been charged with obstruction of justice for their role in the case.“Zamora’s defense has been hamstrung from day one by a revolving door of defense lawyers,” said Stephen Townley, legal director of the TrialWatch initiative at the Clooney Foundation for Justice, a rights group. “Four of his lawyers have been prosecuted by the Guatemalan authorities. Others then seemed not to have access to their predecessors’ materials.”A judge who had been presiding over the case earlier in the process did not allow Mr. Zamora to present any witnesses and rejected most of the evidence he tried to submit, deeming it irrelevant.“We have seen,’’ Mr. Zamora said in an interview, “a theater of terror.”Mr. Zamora’s son, José Carlos Zamora, who is also a journalist, called the trial a “political persecution.’’For his part, Mr. Giammattei, referring to the case against Mr. Zamora, has said that being a journalist does not give a person the “right to commit criminal acts.’’President Alejandro Giammattei was among the leading Guatemalan figures being investigated by Mr. Zamora’s newspaper.Erin Schaff/The New York TimesStill, his administration has been accused by human rights groups of using the justice system to target anyone who challenges his government.Corruption and human rights cases have stalled and the justice system has been “hijacked” by a network of corrupt actors, according to a report by WOLA.Since 2021, nearly three dozen judges, anti-corruption prosecutors and their lawyers have fled Guatemala, as have 22 journalists who say they had been threatened because of their work.When elPeriódico was founded in 1996, Guatemala was entering a more hopeful period following a brutal civil war that lasted nearly four decades and left hundreds of thousands dead or missing. For many weary Guatemalans, there was a feeling that democracy was taking hold and the government would rule with transparency.A U.N.-backed international panel of investigators spent 12 years working alongside Guatemala’s judiciary to expose graft among the country’s elite, including top government officials and businessmen, before being expelled from the country in 2019 by the previous president whom the panel was investigating.“What we see today is a system that wants to continue to protect’’ criminal behavior, said Daniel Haering, a political analyst in Guatemala City.Mr. Zamora’s case and the demise of his newspaper sets back efforts to hold the government accountable for its actions, Ms. Méndez said.“Who’s going to tell the truth in Guatemala now?” she said. “There will be a huge void left.”Mr. Zamora with his lawyer on the opening day of his trial last month. He had not been allowed to present any witnesses or submit most of the evidence in his defense.Santiago Billy/Associated PressMr. Zamora’s trial ends as the country prepares for national elections on June 25, which civil rights groups say have already been tarnished after judges in recent months banned four presidential candidates from opposition parties from the vote.Among those was Carlos Pineda, a conservative populist, who had pledged to fight corruption and who a recent poll showed had risen to the top of the field. Guatemala’s top court removed him from the race on charges that the methods Mr. Pineda’s party used to choose him as its candidate had violated electoral law.Mr. Zamora’s case has also ensnared journalists simply for covering it. Eight reporters, editors and columnists are being investigated on charges of obstruction of justice after writing about the process for elPeriódico. Most have left Guatemala.Since Mr. Giammattei took office in January 2020, the Journalists Association of Guatemala has documented 472 cases of harassment, physical attacks, intimidation and censorship against the press.“You immediately ask yourself, ‘At what point is my coverage interpreted as a crime?’” said Claudia Méndez, who worked at elPeriódico as a reporter and editor and now works for a Guatemalan radio show. “‘At what point is my work no longer an exercise in criticism and accountability, but seen as an unlawful act?’” More

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      How Turkey’s Erdogan Rose to Power

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      Turkey’s leader faced a criminal conviction, mass protests and a coup. Instead of hurting or ending his political career, they helped him accumulate ever more control.From mayor to lawmaker and prime minister to president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan rose through the ranks to Turkey’s highest positions and then made them his own, bringing the country over the course of 20 years closer to one-man rule.On Sunday, Mr. Erdogan will try to secure another term as president, although only after the opposition forced him into a runoff vote. That the election has gone to a second round is a sign that his grip on the country has slipped, if not been broken, amid a host of problems like economic turmoil, widespread corruption and his government’s handling of catastrophic earthquakes this spring.But Mr. Erdogan has navigated crises since the earliest days of his career, including a jail sentence, mass protests and an attempted coup. Several of those episodes illustrate how he not just survived crises, but found opportunities to consolidate power through them.A lifetime ban that lasted a few yearsIn 1998, Mr. Erdogan, then Istanbul’s 44-year-old mayor, was a rising star of Turkey’s Islamist political movement — which was the target of a crackdown by the military-backed authorities. That year, a court convicted him of having called for religious insurrection by quoting an Islamist poem from the 1920s. He was sentenced to 10 months in jail and handed a lifetime ban on political activity.Although predominantly Muslim, Turkey was founded as a secular republic and the traditional political elites felt the Islamists were anathema to those values.Mr. Erdogan when he was mayor of Istanbul in 1998.Murad Sezer/Associated PressMr. Erdogan spent four months in jail, making plans for a comeback despite the ban. In a general amnesty in 2001, Turkey’s Constitutional Court lifted the ban, and he soon assembled a new political party with other reformists from the Islamist movement who promised good governance and sought ties with the West.Allies who changed the rulesMr. Erdogan’s ascent was nearly stopped in 2002 by Turkey’s electoral board, which barred him from an election because of his criminal conviction. But his party colleagues, who had swept into Parliament, amended the Constitution to let him run. Mr. Erdogan won office and became prime minister in 2003.He governed piously at home and pragmatically abroad, winning allies with a mix of charisma and nationalistic fervor. He pushed to lift bans on women’s head scarves in state offices, promoted the construction of mosques, courted the E.U. market and fended off challenges from rivals among Turkey’s military and business elites.Mr. Erdogan promoted the construction of mosques in the country, such as the Taksim Square mosque in Istanbul.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesHis government also began prosecuting some of those figures, in 2008 accusing dozens of people, including retired army generals and journalists, of trying to stage a coup. Mr. Erdogan’s allies called the trial an attempt to reckon with Turkey’s history of violent power struggle. Critics called it an effort to silence the secular opposition.With voters’ approval in a referendum two years later, Mr. Erdogan reshaped the Constitution again. He said the 2010 overhaul brought Turkey closer to Europe’s democracies and broke from its military past, while his opponents said it gave his conservative government greater control over the military and the courts. He won a third term as prime minister in 2011.The mall that provoked protestsMr. Erdogan was not without significant, if disparate, opposition. In 2013, protests that erupted over a proposed mall to replace an Istanbul park morphed into a demonstration of discontent over many issues, including the drift toward Islamist policies and persistent corruption.Mr. Erdogan cracked down, not just on protesters but also on medics, journalists, activists, business owners and officials accused of sympathizing. Some cultural figures were imprisoned and others fled, and for many who remained, an atmosphere of self-censorship descended.People running away as Turkish riot police fire tear gas on Taksim Square during protests in 2013.Bulent Kilic/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAs his term neared its end, Mr. Erdogan faced a problem: His party’s rules prevented him from another turn as prime minister. In 2014, he instead ran for another office — becoming Turkey’s first popularly elected president, opening his term with words of rapprochement.“I want us to build a new future with an understanding of societal reconciliation, while considering our differences as our richnesses and bringing forward our common values,” he said in a victory speech.But rather than limit himself to the mostly ceremonial duties of the role, he moved to maximize its powers, which included a veto on legislation and the ability to appoint judges.The transformative aftermath of a coupMr. Erdogan’s rule nearly ended in 2016, as a chaotic insurrection by parts of the military and members of an Islamist group that had once been his political ally tried to oust him. But he skirted capture, called Turks to protest in the streets and soon re-emerged in Istanbul to reassert control.“What is being perpetrated is a rebellion,” he said. “They will pay a heavy price for their treason to Turkey.”Soldiers involved in a coup attempt surrendering in Istanbul in 2016.Gokhan Tan/Getty ImagesA purge that followed reshaped Turkey: Thousands accused of connections to the coup plot were arrested, tens of thousands lost jobs in schools, police departments and other institutions, and more than 100 media outlets were shuttered. Most of those caught up in the purge were accused of affiliations with the Gulen movement, the Islamist followers of Fethullah Gulen, the cleric accused by Mr. Erdogan of orchestrating the coup while living in exile in the United States.Within a year, Mr. Erdogan had arranged another referendum for voters, this one on whether to abolish the post of prime minister and move power to the president, as well as grant the role more abilities.With his opponents under pressure and his allies reinvigorated, he narrowly won the referendum, calling the changes necessary to make the government more efficient. The next year, he won re-election to another five-year term.A blitz of decrees and growing discontentHours before his inauguration in 2018, Mr. Erdogan published a 143-page decree that changed the way almost every government department operated. He fired another 18,000 state employees and made several major appointments, naming his son-in-law the new finance minister.The decree was just one sign of how far Mr. Erdogan has taken Turkey down the path toward strongman rule. The government announced new internet restrictions and started monumental projects — including soaring bridges, an enormous mosque and a plan for an “Istanbul Canal.”Many of Mr. Erdogan’s supporters hail efforts like these as visionary, but critics say they feed a construction industry that is plagued by corruption and which has wasted state funds.A poster featuring Mr. Erdogan during the election campaign this month in Istanbul.Sergey Ponomarev for The New York TimesThose frustrations have spread among many Turks in recent years. While Mr. Erdogan has raised Turkey’s stature abroad and pursued major projects, his consolidation of power has left some uneasy, and the economy has suffered.That dissent has loosened Mr. Erdogan’s hold over the country.In 2019, his party lost control of some of Turkey’s largest cities — only to contest the results in Istanbul. Turkey’s High Election Council ordered a do-over election, a decision condemned by the opposition as a capitulation to Mr. Erdogan, but his party lost that second vote, too, ending 25 years of dominance in Turkey’s largest city.And now, with his government criticized for its preparation for earthquakes and its response to them, and Turkey’s economy teetering on the verge of crisis, Mr. Erdogan has persisted with major spending and lowering interest rates despite inflation, which has left many Turks feeling far poorer. More

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      As Greece Votes, Leader Says Blocking Migrants Built ‘Good Will’ With Europe

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      Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has taken a tough line on migrants as he turns around the country’s economy. It’s a trade-off that voters and the European Union seem more than willing to abide.Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of Greece has been accused of illegally pushing asylum seekers back at sea. He has acknowledged that the state’s intelligence service wiretapped an opposition leader. He has consolidated media control as press freedom in Greece has dropped to the lowest in Europe.It is the sort of thing that the guardians of European Union values often scorn in right-wing populist leaders, whether it be Giorgia Meloni of Italy or Viktor Orban of Hungary. But with Greece holding national elections on Sunday, Brussels has instead lauded Mr. Mitsotakis, a pro-Europe conservative, for bringing stability to the Greek economy, for sending military aid to Ukraine and for providing regional stability in a time of potential upheaval in Turkey.Above all, European Union leaders appear to have cut Mr. Mitsotakis slack for doing the continent’s unpleasant work of keeping migrants at bay, a development that shows just how much Europe has shifted, with crackdowns formerly associated with the right wing drifting into the mainstream.“I’m helping Europe on numerous fronts,” Mr. Mitsotakis said in a brief interview on Tuesday in the port city of Piraeus, where, in his trademark blue dress shirt and slacks, the 55-year-old rallied adoring voters on crowded streets. “It’s bought us reasonable good will.”With Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, calling Greece’s border enforcement Europe’s “shield,” Mr. Mitsotakis argued that after the arrival of more than a million migrants and asylum seekers destabilized the continent’s politics by entering through Greece during the refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016, Europe had come around to Greece’s tougher approach.Migrants on a dinghy accompanied by a Frontex vessel at the village of Skala Sikaminias, on the Greek island of Lesbos, after crossing the Aegean Sea from Turkey in 2020.Michael Varaklas/Associated Press“We’ve been able to sort of change, I think, the European approach vis-à-vis migration,” said Mr. Mitsotakis, a self-described progressive, disputing the notion that the policy — which critics say includes illegally pushing asylum seekers back — was hard-right.“Right-wing or a central policy,” said Mr. Mitsotakis, the leader of the nominally center-right New Democracy party, “I don’t know what it is, but I have to protect my borders.”In turn, Europe seems to have protected Mr. Mitsotakis.“It’s the Mitsotakis exception,” said Alberto Alemanno, a professor of European Union law at the HEC Paris business school. Mr. Mitsotakis’ special treatment has derived from his political closeness to Ms. von der Leyen, Mr. Alemanno said, and his willingness to build — with funding from the bloc — a vast network of migrant centers that have proved politically popular in Greece.Mr. Mitsotakis argued that some “leftist Illuminati in Brussels” failed to see that he was saving lives with his policy, something that he said Europe’s leaders appreciated.“We’re no longer sort of the poster child for problems in Europe,” he said, adding that what he had done “offers a lot of people relief.”Greeks included. Before Sunday’s elections, Mr. Mitsotakis held a comfortable lead in the polls against his main rival, Alexis Tsipras, of the left-wing Syriza party, even if the prime minister still appeared to lack enough support to win outright. A second round of elections looks probable in July.Alexis Tsipras, left, and Mr. Mitsotakis taking part in a televised debate at the headquarters of the state broadcaster ERT this month.Alexandros Avramidis/ReutersAround the neighborhood where Mr. Mitsotakis campaigned, people talked about how he had made their native Greek islands that were once overrun with migrants livable again, how he had been the first Greek prime minister invited to speak to a joint session of Congress in Washington, and how he had stood up to Turkey’s strongman president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who himself faces an election runoff next weekend.Greeks around the country appreciate how Mr. Mitsotakis has cut taxes and debt and increased digitization, minimum wages and pensions.For a decade, Greece was Europe’s thumping migraine. The country’s catastrophic 2010 debt crisis nearly sank the European Union. Humiliating bailouts followed, and a decade of stark austerity policies — directed by Germany — cut pensions and public services, shrank economic output by a quarter, inflated unemployment and prompted thousands of young and professional Greeks to flee.In 2015, under the leadership of Mr. Tsipras, Greeks voted to reject Europe’s many-strings-attached aid package, and the country was nearly ejected from the eurozone. Social unrest and talk of “Grexit” mounted, but Mr. Tsipras ended up carrying out the required overhauls and moderated in the following years, arguing that Greece had started on the road to recovery.But in 2019 he lost to Mr. Mitsotakis — the son of a former prime minister, trained at Harvard and Stanford, at ease in Washington — who seemed the personification of the establishment. He promised to right the Greek ship.“This was always my bet,” Mr. Mitsotakis said. “And I think that we delivered.”His government has spurred growth at twice the eurozone average. Big multinational corporations and start-ups have invested. Tourism is skyrocketing.Tourists visiting the Acropolis in Athens in October.Petros Giannakouris/Associated PressThe country is paying back creditors ahead of schedule, and Mr. Mitsotakis expects, if he wins, international rating agencies to lift Greece’s bonds out of junk status. The number of migrant arrivals has dropped off 90 percent since the crisis in 2015, but also significantly since Mr. Mitsotakis took office four years ago.“A European success story,” The Economist called Greece under Mr. Mitsotakis.But he argues that he needs another four years to finish the job. Greece, which still has the European Union’s highest national debt, is also the bloc’s second-poorest nation, after Bulgaria. Tax evasion is still common, and the country’s judicial system is so slow that it scares off investors.Critics of Mr. Mitsotakis say that, apart from the economy, he represents a danger to Greece’s values, and that Europe is diverting its eyes as it focuses on the financials and the declining number of migrants.Humanitarian groups have accused Mr. Mitsotakis of illegally pushing back migrants by land and sea. He has hardly run away from the issue, recently visiting Lesbos, the Greek island that became synonymous with the abominable conditions of its Moria camp, which was crammed with 20,000 refugees before burning down.“Moria is no more,” Mr. Mitsotakis said in the interview. “It simply doesn’t exist. I mean, you have olive groves and we have an ultramodern reception facility that’s been built with European money.” Critics have denounced the new camp’s prisonlike conditions, but Greeks overwhelmingly support his tough line.Mr. Mitsotakis during a campaign event on the island of Lesbos last week.Elias Marcou/ReutersEurope is “less on top of Greece for doing pushbacks and all the sort of things,” said Camino Mortera-Martinez, who heads the Brussels office for the Center for European Reform, a think tank.The latitude given Greece, she said, was in part recognition that the country had lived through a decade of brutal austerity. But it also reflected that Europe as a whole is “basically unable to help” Greece and other nations at the front line of the migration crisis, and therefore lets “these governments do what they do.”Migration aside, there are other more immediate concerns at home. In February, a train crash killed 57 people, exposing Greece’s rickety infrastructure and the limits of Mr. Mitsotakis’ talk of modernization. Reporters Without Borders deemed Greece the worst country in the European Union for press freedom in its 2023 index.Destroyed train cars at the site of a crash where two trains collided near the Greek city of Larissa in March.Angelos Tzortzinis for The New York TimesOver the summer, Mr. Mitsotakis’ top intelligence official got caught wiretapping journalists and politicians, including Nikos Androulakis, the leader of the opposition Pasok party and member of European Parliament. Mr. Mitsotakis denied, to the incredulity of many, knowing anything about it. Some of the people his intelligence services listened in on were also found to have illegal malware on their devices. The government has denied putting it there.But Mr. Mitsotakis, in a televised debate this month, conceded that Mr. Androulakis should not have been wiretapped. The spying was an especially bad idea, it turns out, because Mr. Androulakis’s support may prove pivotal to the election’s ultimate outcome.Yet the scandal is way down on voters’ list of priorities, as is Mr. Mitsotakis’ treatment of migrants.John Vrakas, 66, who was handing out fliers for Mr. Tsipras across from the square where Mr. Mitsotakis was due to speak, shrugged that Europe didn’t seem particularly bothered as long as the prime minister assuaged their concerns on the economy and Ukraine. “It’s a kind of trade,” he said.It is one that Greek voters seem happy to make.As Mr. Mitsotakis walked the streets, a bus driver reached out the window and clasped his hand. “Supporters until the end,” chanted a group of men in front of a cafe. “We trust you,” a woman shouted from her jewelry shop.What “resonates in Europe,” Mr. Mitsotakis said, was that his was an “anti-populist government” that had brought much-appreciated stability back to Greece in a rough region.He got up from the interview in a small and otherwise empty restaurant, and shook more hands on the way to the square, where he launched into a short stump speech interrupted by chiming church bells.“I’m not sure who they are tolling for,” Mr. Mitsotakis exclaimed, “but not for us.”In Athens this month.Orestis Panagiotou/EPA, via ShutterstockNiki Kitsantonis More

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      Fox News Remains an Aberration in American Journalism

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      The decision by Dominion Voting Systems on Tuesday to settle its defamation suit against Fox News is no doubt a disappointment to the many people who have been viciously demeaned and insulted by the network’s hosts over the years and who now won’t get to see those hosts writhe on the witness stand as they are forced to admit their lies. But the settlement is also a lost opportunity for the profession of journalism.A six-week trial, especially if it ended in a victory for Dominion, could have demonstrated to the public in painstaking detail what an abject aberration Fox has become among American news organizations. In-person testimony would have illustrated what the pre-trial evidence had begun to show: that Fox hosts and executives knew full well that the conspiracy theories they peddled about the outcome of the 2020 election were false, but they broadcast them anyway to hang on to viewers who didn’t want to hear the truth. A loss by Fox, with a staggering damage award, would have demonstrated that its behavior was so exceptional and outrageous that it had to be punished.People inclined to believe that all news organizations deliberately lie to build their audience may not consider Fox’s actions to be the least bit aberrant. But if that were true, there would be a lot more trials like the one that almost happened in this case. In fact, there have been very few media trials in recent years — usually in the single digits each year, according to one study — compared with the thousands of civil trials each year. Most defamation cases are dismissed before they ever get near a trial, in part because the plaintiff could not come close to proving a news organization met the “actual malice” standard set out in the landmark New York Times v. Sullivan case of 1964, but also often because the plaintiff couldn’t even convince the judge that the defamatory material was false. News organizations also win dismissals by persuading judges that the material at issue was a legitimate opinion or was a “fair report” of allegations made at a public meeting or trial.Fox couldn’t persuade a judge of any of those defenses. In fact, the judge in this case, Eric Davis, ruled in March that it “is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true” — a decision that was a huge setback for Fox and may have led to its eagerness to settle the case.Most defamation cases that are not dismissed are settled before trial, and the Dominion case essentially fits that pattern even though a jury had already been selected. But the size of the monetary settlement that Fox must pay, $787.5 million, also makes it a huge outlier. The next-largest publicly disclosed settlement of a defamation case against a major news organization was reached in 2017, when ABC News settled a case for at least $177 million. (Alex Jones, who was ordered last year to pay over $1.4 billion to families of victims in the Sandy Hook shooting, is not part of a legitimate news organization.)Still, nothing would have compared with a full-length trial in this case and a victory for Dominion, which many legal experts said was a strong possibility. That kind of defeat for a major news organization almost never happens, and the reason is that unlike their counterparts at Fox, journalists in conventional newsrooms don’t actually plot to deceive their audiences. They might make mistakes, they might be misled by a source or cast a story in a way they later regret, but with very rare exceptions they don’t deliberately lie.The emails and text messages demonstrating Fox’s knowing deceit, which came out in pre-trial discovery, were shocking both in their cynicism and in their deviation from industry norms. Vociferous press critics on the right and the left will scoff at this notion, but the fact is that journalists in functional newsrooms want to tell the truth. And they do so not because they fear getting sued but because that’s why they got into the business. I’ve worked for more than four decades in six American newsrooms, large and small, and the pattern of behavior shown by Fox would have been unthinkable in any of them at any time.That’s why a loss by Fox would not have raised significant press freedom issues, nor would it have increased the threat that journalists would regularly be sued for defamation. Because of the Sullivan case, news organizations are protected from libel judgments if they do not recklessly disregard the truth or engage in actual malice, which almost all newsrooms scrupulously avoid doing. Fox, however, sped right past those red lights, got caught and then spent an enormous amount of money to avoid the stain of a potential guilty verdict and the spectacle of its chairman, Rupert Murdoch, testifying to its dysfunction. (The company again demonstrated its disdain for the truth by issuing a statement on Tuesday afternoon saying the settlement demonstrated its “commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”) A second chance at clarity is coming with a libel suit against Fox by a different voting-technology company, Smartmatic. Maybe this time the opportunity to perform a public service by conducting a trial will outweigh the temptation of a Fox settlement offer.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      What Next for Dominion After Its $787.5 Million Fox Settlement

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      The election technology company has several more defamation lawsuits pending against public figures and news outlets.Dominion Voting Systems did more on Tuesday than settle its lawsuit against Fox News for $787.5 million: It also set the tone for the many related defamation cases it has filed. Legal experts say the settlement with Fox News, one of the largest defamation payouts in American history, could embolden Dominion as it continues to defend its reputation, which it says was savaged by conspiracy theories about vote fraud during the 2020 election. The company has several cases pending against public figures including Mike Lindell, the MyPillow executive, and news outlets such as Newsmax.The targets of Dominion’s remaining lawsuits, few of which have deep pockets and legal firepower at Fox’s level, will likely take a cue from Dominion and Fox’s face-off, legal experts said.“Even though it was a settlement, it certainly was a victory for Dominion,” said Margaret M. Russell, a law professor at Santa Clara University. “For other possible defendants, I don’t think this will make them double down; it will make them fearful.”Dominion is the second-largest election technology company operating in the United States, where there are few other major players. The company, whose majority owner is the private equity firm Staple Street Capital, was made “toxic” by the false fraud narratives in 2020, one of Staple Street’s founders said in court documents. At one point, Dominion estimated that misinformation cost it $600 million in profits.Fox said in its court filings that Dominion did not have to lay off employees, close offices or default on any debts, nor did it suffer any canceled business contracts as a result of the news network’s coverage. Fox said in one filing that Dominion had projected $98 million in revenue for 2022, which would make Tuesday’s settlement the equivalent of eight years of sales.Dominion’s customers are largely officials who oversee voting in states and counties around the country; the company served 28 states, as well as Puerto Rico, in the 2020 election. The false stories about fraud that were directed at the company were embraced by some local election officials.In court documents, an expert enlisted by Dominion said that the company had very low early contract termination rates and very high contract renewal rates before the 2020 election, but blamed the preoccupation with the false fraud claims for prompting some clients to exit deals after the vote.Now, Dominion has emerged from its tussle with Fox in a stronger position to win back any skittish clients or score new business, legal experts said.Last month, the judge in Dominion’s case against Fox reviewed evidence of the false claims and wrote that it “is CRYSTAL clear that none of the statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true,” effectively confirming that the company was aboveboard.The secretary of state of New Mexico, Maggie Toulouse Oliver, applauded Tuesday’s settlement.“The harm done by election lies/denialism since 2020 is immeasurable, but this settlement against Fox News provides accountability & sends a strong message we’re happy to see,” Ms. Toulouse Oliver wrote on Twitter. During the midterm primaries last year, she blamed “unfounded conspiracy theories” when she sued officials in Otero county who had cited concerns about Dominion machines in their refusal to certify election results.Fox acknowledged in a statement on Tuesday that some of the claims it had made about Dominion were false, saying that the admission “reflects Fox’s continued commitment to the highest journalistic standards.”John Poulos, Dominion’s founder and chief executive, said in a statement on Tuesday that Fox caused “enormous damage” to his company and “nothing can ever make up for that.” He also thanked the election officials who make up Dominion’s clientele, and nodded to Staple Street’s support. “Lies have consequences,” a lawyer for Dominion Voting Systems said during a news conference.Pete Marovich for The New York TimesDominion drew some complaints that by settling, it had given up the opportunity to extract an apology from Fox or force it through a potentially embarrassing trial. An opinion article in the Daily Beast bemoaned that the voting technology company had “decided to step out of the ring with a bag of money instead of vanquishing one of the country’s most destructive and influential peddlers of hate and disinformation.”Mr. Poulos called the settlement “a big step forward for democracy” in an interview with ABC News broadcast on Wednesday.Legal experts noted that even if Dominion had prevailed in a jury verdict, it would have risked years of expensive battles over appeals from Fox.“The tort of defamation is not about saving democracy from liars,” said Enrique Armijo, a professor and First Amendment expert at Elon University School of Law. “It’s about saving the reputation of the people who have been lied about and making those liars compensate them for the harms to their reputations.”Fox still faces other legal challenges, including a $2.7 billion defamation lawsuit from another election technology company, Smartmatic. Fox said it planned to defend freedom of the press in the case and called Smartmatic’s damages claims “outrageous, unsupported and not rooted in sound financial analysis.” Smartmatic said in a statement that, after the Dominion settlement, it “will expose the rest” of the “misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign.”Dominion, too, has more cases pending, including against the pro-Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani and One America News Network. Although the lawsuits involve similar false claims of election fraud, the facts of each case vary, experts said.Attorneys for Mr. Lindell and Mr. Giuliani did not immediately respond to requests for comment, nor did Newsmax or OAN.For the individuals and smaller companies facing legal claims, for whom a substantial jury judgment could be an “existential” threat, settlement may seem more attractive after Tuesday, Mr. Armijo said.“They’re not going to be able to put up the same level of defense that Fox did; they just don’t have the resources to do it,” he said. “It’s hard to see the other defamation defendants in the remaining cases getting any further than Fox did, which, as we saw, is not very far.” More

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      What Protects Fox News In the Dominion Trial Also Protects Our Democracy

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      Fox News, which is defending itself from Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion lawsuit, is going to trial on Monday in a hole. In an unusual move, the judge has already ruled that on-air statements — those asserting that Dominion’s voting machines played a role in causing Donald Trump to lose the 2020 election — were false. The main task left for the jury is to decide whether Fox made those false statements with what’s known as actual malice.It’s remarkable that Dominion’s suit has gotten this far and may even ultimately prevail, thanks in part to a raft of incredibly damaging Fox emails, text messages and other evidence that show deep internal misgivings about on-air claims about the 2020 election. But proving actual malice is difficult: Dominion must show that Fox News either knew that its reporting was false or entertained serious doubts about the truth of the reporting. This high bar, set by the Supreme Court in 1964, often is insurmountable for plaintiffs.Given the evidence against Fox that already has been made public, it might seem unfair that Dominion continues to face such an uphill battle in this case. But it is a very good thing for our democracy that it is so difficult to prove actual malice.A movement to erode this legal protection has gained steam in recent years, but the main push has not come from Fox critics. Rather, conservatives have characterized the protections as unfairly enabling liberal news outlets to lie. Commentators, politicians, judges and two Supreme Court justices have urged the court to reconsider these protections.The Dominion case demonstrates why this politicization is the wrong course. Overturning nearly six decades of vital First Amendment precedent would not benefit conservatives, liberals or anyone other than those who seek to stifle reporting and criticism with the threat of litigation.Sixty-three years ago, this newspaper ran a full-page advertisement from a civil rights committee that accused Southern officials of mistreating Martin Luther King Jr. and other peaceful protesters. Some statements were untrue. For instance, although the city of Montgomery, Ala., had deployed the police near a local college, the officers did not “ring” the campus, as the ad alleged. L.B. Sullivan, a Montgomery city commissioner who supervised the police, sued The New York Times for defamation, and the all-white jury found against The Times and four Black ministers whose names were on the advertisement and awarded Sullivan $500,000.The Supreme Court in 1964 unanimously overturned that ruling, reasoning that public officials must establish actual malice before recovering defamation damages. Justice William Brennan touted the “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” The court later expanded this requirement to public-figure defamation plaintiffs.The merits of New York Times v. Sullivan have long been the subject of academic debate, but its survival was not seriously questioned until 2019, when Justice Clarence Thomas called on the court to revisit the decision. He deemed Sullivan and its progeny “policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law.” Two years later, Justice Neil Gorsuch joined Justice Thomas, arguing that the actual malice rule might enable the spread of falsehoods online and on cable news.As the Supreme Court showed last year when it overturned Roe v. Wade, no precedent is entirely safe from reversal, so any supporters of Sullivan should be quite concerned by two justices calling to revisit the case.Sullivan is increasingly under attack. This month, for instance, a Trump-appointed federal judge in Florida took a swipe at the actual malice standard when applying it to rule in favor of CNN in a defamation lawsuit that the lawyer Alan Dershowitz brought against the network. “Policy-based decisions” such as the actual malice rule are best left to elected legislatures, “not to an unelected judge who may be king or queen for a day (or a lifetime),” Judge Raag Singhal wrote. Judge Laurence Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit cited the media’s “bias against the Republican Party” in his 2021 call to overturn Sullivan. And at a February round table about the news media, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said the precedent enables the media to “smear” politicians.The actual malice rule protects speakers regardless of politics. It protects CNN and The New York Times. It protects Fox News and Newsmax. The rule gives them the flexibility to investigate, report on and criticize the most powerful people and companies without fearing ruinous liability because of an accidental error. It also protects individual speakers on social media.The precedent does not provide media outlets and other speakers with a blank check to knowingly lie. Actual malice is a high bar, but it is not insurmountable. Dominion has already produced emails and other evidence that Fox employees and executives privately entertained serious doubts about many claims about the election. The jury could well conclude that Fox knew of the statements’ falsity or were sufficiently aware of their probable falsity. But Sullivan gives Fox the opportunity to present this defense rather than automatically becoming liable for every error.Judges who argue that the actual malice rule may not be rooted in the First Amendment gloss over the threat to speech posed by using the power of the government — court judgments — to punish speech.Attacks on Sullivan are attacks on the building blocks of democracy, and they should concern everyone who cares about free speech, regardless of political affiliation. We have seen how the powerful have weaponized weaker defamation laws in other countries. In a December report, UNESCO noted that there has been a global increase in civil defamation lawsuits that often aim “to target journalists who publish content that makes public officials or powerful economic actors uncomfortable.” A 2020 report from the Foreign Policy Center observed that since a right-wing populist party rose to power in Poland in 2015, a Polish daily newspaper had received more than 55 legal threats from “powerful state actors,” state-owned companies and people tied to the ruling party.Fearing such an outcome, Matthew Schafer, a First Amendment lawyer (who represented The Times a number of years ago), and I came up with a backup plan: In a recent law review article, we proposed a federal statute that would codify the actual malice rule and other vital free speech and press protections. While courts and state legislatures would be free to impose even stronger protections, our proposal would prevent a sudden erosion of free speech because of a single Supreme Court opinion.Hopefully, such a plan will be unnecessary and judges will come to again recognize the enduring value of Sullivan. The Dominion trial is an opportunity for the nation to witness how this “profound national commitment” protects all speakers. And it will be in the best interests of conservatives to fight to protect Sullivan rather than to tear it down.Jeff Kosseff is a senior legal fellow at The Future of Free Speech Project and the author of the forthcoming book “Liar in a Crowded Theater: Freedom of Speech in a World of Misinformation.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More