Germany Law to Force Algorithm Boost for State-Approved News

The regulators who would decide what counts as "reliable" news are appointed through a chain that starts with the same politicians whose coverage they'd be curating. Germany’s state media regulators are building a system that would force social media platforms to boost content from government-approved news outlets in their algorithms. A leaked document, obtained by Apollo News, lays out the plan and if it goes ahead, a state authority will decide which media organizations count as “reliable,” and platforms like X, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok will be legally required to make those outlets’ content more visible in users’ feeds. The proposal could become law within months. Thorsten Schmiege, head of Germany’s Landesmedienanstalten (state media authorities) and president of Bavaria’s media regulator, said the German states plan to present a first draft of the Digital Media State Treaty this summer. Part of it would address “how reliable information can be pushed more prominently into feeds.” The document, titled “Paper on the Further Development of Public Value,” describes a multi-stage process. First, entire media organizations get designated as “public value” outlets by the Commission for Licensing and Supervision (ZAK), a body composed of the heads of all 14 state media authorities. Those heads are elected by media councils whose members are, depending on the state, partly or entirely chosen by state parliaments. The chain from elected politicians to the people deciding which media are “reliable” is short. Second, individual articles and videos from approved outlets would receive the “public value” label, with outlets flagging their own content as serving the public interest. Then platforms would be legally required to alter their algorithms to prioritize this content. The paper even floats a “legal quota” for how much state-approved content must appear in feeds. The paper warns of “disinformative, polarizing, or merely attention-grabbing content” dominating algorithms. The entity defining “disinformation” and the entity selecting “reliable” sources are, functionally, the same network of politically appointed regulators. Since 2025, outlets granted “public value” status have already gotten preferential placement in app stores and smart TV interfaces, with ARD and ZDF ranked at the top. The new proposal extends that system directly into social media feeds. The regulatory apparatus making these decisions already has a track record of targeting inconvenient outlets. The Berlin-Brandenburg media authority used Paragraph 19 of the Interstate Media Treaty to sanction Nius, a right-leaning outlet, over a report about refugees. Independent journalist Alexander Wallasch was told to delete three articles and audit his entire archive. Since 2020, the authorities have sent 94 formal warning letters to online media, overwhelmingly aimed at smaller, independent publications. If regulatory approval determines whether your content gets boosted or buried, every editorial decision starts to factor in what the regulator wants to see. Germany’s state media authorities call themselves “independent from the state.” The people who run them are selected through a chain that begins in state parliaments. If this proposal becomes law, that chain will reach directly into your social media feed.