US-based nonprofit Freedom House released its latest annual study of global internet freedom yesterday, titled Freedom on the Net 2022: Countering an Authoritarian Overhaul of the Internet.
In this edition of Document of the Day, we feature a new report out today from Freedom House, a US-based think tank, about how the coronavirus pandemic has affected digital freedoms around the world. The report includes details on governments’ actions that have curtailed citizens’ access to open information on the web, and the website features and interactive map where users can see which countries made the “free” list and which ones didn’t.
Independent news organizations in Indonesia, the Philippines and South Korea are experiencing both direct and indirect challenges in cyberspace, from content blocking to censorship and self-censorship. Edgardo Legaspi, executive director of the Southeast Asian Press Alliance, says threatened governments are “playing catch-up” after recognizing that the Internet can be an effective tool for voices to be heard.
Here’s the annual map of global Internet freedom, drawn from Freedom on the Net 2015, released this week by Freedom House. The news is not good: Internet freedom worldwide declined for the fifth straight year in 2015, with more governments censoring information of public interest while expanding surveillance and restricting privacy tools, the report found. More than 61 percent of Internet users reside where criticism of governments, militaries, or ruling families have been subject to online censorship. A striking 58 percent live in countries where people have been imprisoned for posting political, social, or religious content.
