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On 23 December 2022, the Dutch government announced a significant new strategy on disinformation, which will involve three different government ministries. The new strategy on disinformation was contained in a Letter to Parliament on behalf of the Minister for Internal Affairs and Kingdom Relations (Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties), the State Secretary on Kingdom Relations and Digitisation (Koninkrijksrelaties en Digitalisering), the Minister of Justice and Security (Justitie en Veiligheid), and the State Secretary for Culture and Media (Cultuur en Media). Crucially, the government emphasised...

On 16 December 2022, the Staatssecretaris Cultuur en Media (State Secretary for Culture and Media) announced significant new funding for local public broadcasting, and a new system of funding for local public broadcasting. Under the scheme, the Dutch government will make over EUR 15.9 Million available to support local public broadcasters in their professionalisation, and in 2024, this funding will increase to EUR 18.9 Million. Significantly, from 2025 onwards, local broadcasters will receive funding directly from the central Dutch government, and no longer from municipalities (see IRIS 2020-6/7)....

On 16 December 2022, the Netherlands' Autoriteit Consument en Markt (Authority for Consumers and Markets — ACM) issued a decree which declared binding the commitment made by the telecom operator T-Mobile to stop offering a data-free music service by 31 March 2023. The decree follows an important judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in September 2021, which held that so-called zero-ratings services are incompatible with EU Regulation (2015/2120) on open internet access (Open Internet Regulation) (see IRIS 2021-9/27). Under T-Mobile’s data-free music service...

On 18 November 2022, the Rechtbank Amsterdam (Amsterdam District Court) delivered a judgment on the scope of journalistic freedom. The case concerned an online newspaper article about the modus operandi of two fairly well-known legal and tax advisors. While the advisors were portrayed particularly negatively, the Court ruled that the article was not unlawful and did not have to be corrected. Importantly, it held that the advisors should be considered "public figures" subject to increased criticism, and that the statements in the article had had a suffient factual basis. The article...

On 1 December 2022, a major report on the safety of female journalists was published. It included the finding that 8 out of 10 female journalists in the Netherlands have experienced some form of intimidation, aggression, or threats; and that this was “alarmingly common”. The report was published by PersVeilig - a well-known joint initiative of Dutch journalists and law enforcement, comprised of the Dutch Association of Journalists, Dutch Association of Editors in Chief, the Dutch Police and the Dutch Public Prosecution Service - and aims to strengthen the position of...