On the last day of his 10-year government, in 2017, Ecuador's president Rafael Correa tabled a bill in the National Assembly to regulate acts of hate and discrimination on social media and the internet. Perhaps it was a signal to make it clear that, once his vice-president Lenin Moreno was elected, the fight against “the corrupt press” would continue. However, Correa did not expect that Moreno would eventually decide to make a 180-degree turn and distance himself from Correísmo — Correa's political movement — and his predecessor's belligerent rhetoric with the press. What's more, Moreno did something that would have been unimaginable in the decade of Correa's rule: he met with a group of owners and managers of private media. One segment of public opinion understood this as a sign that the relationship with the press would be different. For others — especially Correa's followers — it reaffirmed the idea that the press must approve of the government, an inexcusable political arrangement. With Moreno, the collective notion of a “before and after” Correa emerged, especially regarding the government's communication: from dictatorship, we went to democracy and freedom. This reductionist binary brought with it the idea that the debates on freedom of the press and expression in the country, even under the current government of Guillermo Lasso, who became president in May 2021, have been dying out. Certainly, what we experience now is a far cry from what we had under Correa. But it is deluded to assume that the press is in a paradise of freedom. Let's see. The latest report from the Ecuadorian organization Fundamedios identified that, between January and December 2021, there were 289 attacks against journalists, citizens, and the media, a situation that violates the rights to free expression, free press, and free access to information. When compared to 2020, Fundamedios affirms that there was a 35 percent growth in aggressions. Faced with this reality, Fundamedios wonders: is it possible to reverse this negative context for the press, or are we facing a structural situation that will only worsen over time? Of course, there are possibly elements that indicate it is a structural issue. Fundamedios, when evaluating the four years of Moreno's government, that is, the first four years after Correa, was able to notice that there was a noticeable decrease in attacks on the press in 2016 (with Correa still in government) in relation to the 2017 (change of command, with Moreno as president). Nevertheless, the main aggressor, including Correa and those who came after him, was still the same: the State. It is the same state that does not assume its role when trying to guarantee press work in the country. In April 2019, the Moreno government created the Inter-institutional Committee for the Protection of Journalists and Communication Workers, which was made up of delegates from the Foreign Ministry, the Ministry of the Interior, the Council for the Regulation, Development and Promotion of Information, and the General Secretariat of Communication. In said act, the then Foreign Minister José Valencia recalled at least three moments that, in his opinion, led to this committee: one, the tense relationship between Rafael Correa and the press; two, the Communication Law, approved in 2013, and which severely punished the private media, especially, and, three, the kidnapping and murder of the El Comercio press team in 2018, a crime that was attributed to a FARC dissident group, the Oliver Sinisterra Front, led by Walter Arízala alias “Guacho.” This last fact, specifically, gave life to this Committee since it was a recommendation of the Final Report of the Special Monitoring Team of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. But the committee, which presented itself in style, has made no progress. The current government even offered, at the end of 2021, to promote this space again and install a more efficient structure for its operation. Doubts remain. The Fundación Periodistas sin Cadenas (Journalists Without Chains Foundation) showed that, at least in the first hundred days of the Lasso government, news blackouts still remain a practice that impedes journalistic work. In other words, public institutions half comply with the Organic Law on Transparency and Access to Information, an “official lock that remains the same as it was with Lenin Moreno,” says the Foundation. Another aspect has to do with the surveillance of political opponents and journalists, especially when, in Ecuador, some of this came from the offices of the National Intelligence Secretariat, Senain — today called the Center for Strategic Intelligence.