Ecuador's Organic Communication Law creates a regulator that issues hundreds of sanctions against journalists and outlets

Ecuador's National Assembly passed the Organic Communication Law under President Rafael Correa, creating the Superintendency of Information and Communication (SUPERCOM), a regulator that issued more than 675 sanctions against journalists and media outlets over the following four years.¹²³⁴

Country

Ecuador (RSF 2026 rank: 125th of 180)

Where

EC

Level of government

National

Tactics

Funding and ownership pressure, Insult and defamation laws

Stage

Pressure (see the ladder)

Head of government at the time

Rafael Correa

Issue of the day

President Correa's long-running public disputes with Ecuadorian media over their coverage of his government, including a separate 2011 libel case against the newspaper El Universo.

Outcome

Reversed, February 20, 2019. President Lenin Moreno's government moved to eliminate SUPERCOM in 2018, and the reform of the Communication Law was published in the Official Register on February 20, 2019; Fundamedios director Cesar Ricaurte said the surrounding legal framework nonetheless remained "intact."

Era

The 2010s

What happened

On June 25, 2013, Ecuador's National Assembly, controlled by allies of President Rafael Correa, passed the Organic Communication Law, which created the Superintendency of Information and Communication (SUPERCOM), a regulator empowered to fine, reprimand or order public apologies from journalists and outlets found to have violated the law's content rules, provisions the United Nations and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said were used against coverage unfavorable to the government. Within four years, SUPERCOM had opened 1,081 cases and issued 675 sanctions, by its own count, split by the monitoring group Fundamedios into 324 fines, 137 written reprimands and 54 forced public apologies. SUPERCOM itself said the law guaranteed rather than restricted press freedom because "in four years no media outlet has been closed." After Correa left office, President Lenin Moreno proposed eliminating SUPERCOM in 2018; his communications secretary said, "If we're in a constructive process, we should get rid of the Supercom."¹²³⁴

What reason was given

SUPERCOM described its own record as evidence the law protected rather than restricted the press, saying "in four years no media outlet has been closed," while United Nations and Inter-American human-rights bodies said the law had been "used as an instrument to unduly interfere in the content of media outlets and punish them, especially when their coverage is unfavorable."³

What changed for reporting

SUPERCOM opened 1,081 cases and issued 675 sanctions against journalists and outlets in four years, including fines, written reprimands and forced public apologies, a pattern Fundamedios and international monitors said pressured critical coverage.¹²³⁴

Timeline

Who acted

Sources

• Ecuador's communications law has sanctioned 675 media outlets and journalists in four yearsLatAm Journalism Review, Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas, 2017-06-25, reporting. Source record
• The U-turn: Moreno steers Ecuador away from Correa's media repressionCommittee to Protect Journalists, 2018-07-24, reporting. Source record
• Listado de concesionarios ... Disposición Transitoria Octava de la Ley Orgánica Reformatoria a la Ley Orgánica de ComunicaciónAgencia de Regulación y Control de las Telecomunicaciones (ARCOTEL), Ecuador, reporting. Source record