THREATS TO MEDIA FREEDOM AND PLURALISM IN POLAND AFTER 2023

Following the takeover of power by the left-liberal administration of Donald Tusk in December 2023, Poland has faced unprecedented threats to freedom of speech, media pluralism, and constitutional civil rights. The government of Donald Tusk, along with its allied left-liberal circles, undertook a series of actions that—under the pretext of combating "disinformation" and "hate speech"—aim directly at establishing systemic censorship and eliminating independent conservative voices from the public sphere. One of the most alarming examples was the attempt to introduce legislation enabling de facto censorship of online content by administrative fiat, without a court order. In January 2025, the Ministry of Digital Affairs proposed a bill implementing the EU Digital Services Act (DSA), which allowed the President of the Office of Electronic Communications (UKE) to remove content from the Internet immediately, without prior judicial review. Following a wave of public criticism, the legislative proposal was suspended. Representatives of the ruling coalition had announced their intention to revisit the initiative after the presidential election scheduled for June 2025. Fortunately, the defeat of the progressive candidate Rafał Trzaskowski has created an opportunity to block such regulatory efforts. In parallel, the left-of-center parliamentary majority passed a law criminalizing so-called “hate speech,” incorporating vague and arbitrary categories such as “dehumanization” or “contempt” toward individuals on grounds of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.” These provisions would allow for imprisonment for religious or conservative speech, including quoting the Bible. The law was halted only due to the intervention of the President of the Republic, who referred it to the Constitutional Court. The victory of the conservative candidate, Karol Nawrocki, in the June election signifies a continuation of policies aimed at safeguarding against censorship. Leading government politicians and public media representatives openly discussed the need to block the X platform during the election campaign. The Minister of Digital Affairs, Krzysztof Gawkowski, advocates “enforcing safety on the web,” while the Left Party leader Magdalena Biejat called for restricting access to X across Europe. State TV employees (TVP Info) even suggested temporarily shutting down the platform in Poland during the election period.