Germany’s state media authorities want so-called Public Value content to become more prominent on social networks. What is intended as a safeguard for media diversity could reshape the rules of the digital public sphere. In the feed, the crucial question is not only what may be said, but what users are shown at all.
On social networks, visibility is journalistic power. Material that is barely shown remains formally free, but in practice it slips out of view. That is precisely where the new plans by Germany’s state media authorities come in. They are examining how posts deemed to have Public Value could be given greater prominence on these platforms in future.
Public Value is the media-policy term for material considered to have particular importance for the public. So far, the status has mainly mattered on smart TV home screens and media platforms, where certain offerings are meant to be easier to find. The principle is now apparently to be extended to social networks.
The state media authorities are supervisory bodies run by Germany’s federal states. By law, they are independent of government. Their task is to oversee private broadcasters and online media services.
A paper by the North Rhine-Westphalia Media Authority that has become public describes the planned measure. The stated reason is concern among regulators that researched journalism is losing ground on social networks to entertainment, outrage, so-called disinformation and sharply worded opinion.
ARD and ZDF in the Front Row
Unlike linear television, social networks are not primarily organized around a package of offerings, such as a channel or a program. They are organized around individual posts. A video, a news item or a comment appears between private updates, advertising and entertainment. What rises to the surface is decided by an algorithm shaped by user signals, platform goals and technical weighting.
That has democratized the information world, but it has also made it harder to navigate. Large media outlets compete with small providers, professional journalism with private observation, reports with outrage videos, news programs with podcasts and cat videos. At first glance, the feed recognizes no established hierarchy. It sorts according to rules users can barely understand.
The media authorities’ proposal now seeks to intervene in that order. Not only an outlet and its overall offering could be classified as Public Value. Individual posts from approved providers could receive the same status. Public broadcasters already rank high among Public Value providers, and there is little reason to assume that social networks would fundamentally change that hierarchy. Among the media already approved, ARD and ZDF occupy the top ranks.
No Ban, Just Priority
The procedure first provides for an assessment of which providers are entitled to mark posts as Public Value. The criteria include journalistic standards, professional operation, independence, impartiality and compliance with the law. Providers that pass the assessment would then decide themselves which of their posts qualify. News, magazine formats, reports and documentaries would be among the possible categories.
The affected platforms would then have to give marked posts priority in their recommendation systems and make them easier to find. The state media authorities could use spot checks to examine whether the requirements were being observed.
That does not create classic censorship. No article is banned, no newspaper is closed and no post is deleted directly. That is exactly where the political sensitivity lies. The intervention does not take place openly at the point of publication, but invisibly at the point of sorting. The user does not see the procedure, only the result: the personal feed.
The question of power is therefore shifting. In the analogue public sphere, the crucial issue was mainly who was allowed to print, broadcast or distribute. In the digital public sphere, the decisive factor is increasingly what is recommended, elevated or pushed to the margins. Visibility is not a side issue. It is the condition for any piece of journalism to have an effect.
Managed Attention
In a political climate in which the minister-president of a German state publicly declares an independent media outlet that harshly criticizes him to be his enemy, extreme caution is needed. Even if the state media authorities are independent of government, they still operate within political mechanisms. The danger lies not in an open ban, but in the method.
Anyone opening a video platform could in future be served news and magazine programs from ARD and ZDF, or other approved Public Value material, in a particularly prominent position even if their own user behavior points elsewhere. Within the feed, every post remains formally accessible. Yet it can still become practically invisible if it is rarely shown. Conversely, a post can be promoted almost to the point of intrusion, even if the user’s profile or interactions do not suggest they belong to its target audience.
In this model, press freedom and freedom of expression are not touched at the printing press, but at the threshold of attention. That is where it is decided whether journalism has any chance of being noticed at all.
The Certificate Always Wins
If a post from an approved Public Value provider competes with one from a non-approved provider, the approved provider has the advantage. The platform must submit a plan showing how the marked post will be made easier to find. The difference is not created by a ban, but by an officially mandated architecture of visibility.
Press freedom and freedom of expression do not protect only officially recognized information. They also protect sharp argument, error, polemic and outsider positions, as long as they remain within the law. A regulatory system that marks certain posts as especially worthy of promotion, while leaving others without that status, is therefore bound to come into tension with press freedom, freedom of information and freedom of expression.
At first glance, the selection criteria seem plausible. Timeliness, relevance to the public interest and journalistic context sound like reasonable standards. Yet in political conflicts, such terms are anything but neutral. Necessary context for one side may already look like paternalism to the other. In borderline cases, a claim treated by regulators as disinformation may instead be an inconvenient minority position.
Critics across the German media therefore see the plans as a possible first step toward state-influenced reach management. The concern is not that unwelcome posts will disappear tomorrow. It is that the conditions of the digital public sphere will quietly shift. Whoever regulates reach changes the conditions under which opinions are perceived.
No feed is neutral. Today’s platform algorithms also follow interests, weightings and business models. But that does not automatically make officially defined visibility unproblematic. On the contrary, if each user’s personal feed becomes a tool of media-policy management, the issue affects not only large platforms and major broadcasters. It affects everyone who gets information online.
The feed thus becomes a political issue, even for users who only want entertainment, sports or cat videos. Perhaps a personal list of trusted outlets and profiles will soon become the most important tool again for those seeking free and independent information beyond all certificates.