Cartooning for Peace is setting up a new project as part of the Global Media Defense Fund (GMDF) administered by UNESCO: ‘Spotlight on the situation of press cartoonists around the world’.
In a context marked by increasing disinformation and restrictions on freedom of expression, Cartooning for Peace wishes to contribute to a more exhaustive and systematic reporting of alerts concerning press cartoonists, as well as the trends and mechanisms underlying censorship, and their media coverage. This project, which will run for 18 months (from February 2025 to August 2026), aims to monitor, document and highlight cases of threats and/or attacks against press cartoonists.
Online censorship represents a major challenge, but its scale, scope and impact have not been documented.
As part of this project, a study of online censorship (including trolling*), how it is carried out and its impact on press cartoonists will be carried out independently by researchers as part of an unprecedented collaboration, details of which will be announced shortly.
Together with its partners, including Cartoonist Rights, Cartooning for Peace will publish a report at the beginning of 2026 which will follow on from the report ‘Cartoonists on the line’ published in November 2023, providing an overview of developments and threats to cartoonists, while incorporating the data from the research carried out.
With the aim of increasing the visibility of the attacks and raising awareness of censorship trends and mechanisms, Cartooning for Peace will produce an interactive tool for the general public and will conduct advocacy work and media coverage on social media platforms. A public event will highlight the situation of press cartoonists under threat and present the results of the research carried out.
A tool-kit by ForHum and Global Freedom of Expression Columbia University is published, primarily intended for the judiciary and other legal professionals, with the aim of promoting an informed, well-balanced, and consistent approach to humorous expression in light of both human rights law and interdisciplinary humor research: What’s in a joke? Assessing Humor in Free Speech Jurisprudence.
This new project builds on two previous projects in support of press cartoonists, carried out with the GMDF-UNESCO:
* Trolling: Leaving an insulting message on the Internet with the aim of annoying someone, creating several profiles at once with the aim of trolling, spreading false information.
Cartoon: Darío (Mexico)
Find out more about alerts concerning press cartoonists around the world here.
