Google just wants you to link naturally and not worry about linking out. If you want to link to a site because it is something your readers would find useful, then link away.
John Mueller from Google said on Twitter "Just link naturally, no need to do anything fancy when linking to other articles in an organic way like that."
Just link naturally, no need to do anything fancy when linking to other articles in an organic way like that.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) November 13, 2018
His response was still filled with anxiety and fear around linking:
Thanks, John. So, even if I have 1000 published articles and each one has 10 external links to sources, there is nothing to worry about. Google will know that those 10.000 links are natural, right?
— Pedro Pinheiro - MD.Saúde (@mdsaude) November 13, 2018
Webmasters, publishers, SEOs simply fear linking out and it is an issue.
Forum discussion at Twitter.