As states increasingly rely on disinformation-for-hire services and mercenaries proliferate, journalists face deadly consequences. One in four journalists killed in non-conflict zones between 2017 and 2022, was the target of disinformation campaigns or received direct threats through social media networks leading up to their death, Forbidden Stories found after analyzing data collected by the Committee to Protect Journalists. Named Daphne Caruana Galizia, Jamal Khashoggi, Rafael Emiro Moreno and Gauri Lankesh, such journalists originated from nearly every continent.
