According to the ‘Freedom on the Net’ (FoTN)’ report by the Freedom House, ‘internet freedom is increasingly imperiled by the tools and tactics of digital authoritarianism, which have spread rapidly around the globe. Repressive regimes, elected incumbents with authoritarian ambitions, and unscrupulous partisan operatives have exploited the unregulated spaces of social media platforms, converting them into instruments for political distortion and societal control. While social media have at times served as a level playing field for civic discussion, they are now tilting dangerously toward illiberalism, exposing citizens to an unprecedented crackdown on their fundamental freedoms. Moreover, a startling variety of governments are deploying advanced tools to identify and monitor users on an immense scale. As a result of these trends, global internet freedom declined for the ninth consecutive year in 2019.
The report titled ‘The Crisis of Social Media’, recording an overall decline in global internet freedom between June 2018 and May 2019.
India has been categorized in partly free country with 55 score whereas China has merely 10 score and was once again declared the worst abuser of internet freedom in 2019.
Iceland is most free country with score of 95.
The watchdog in its report placed Pakistan at 26, out of 100, one place down from last year’s ranking. The country scored 5 out of 25 for obstacles to access, 14 out of 35 for limits on content, and 7 out of 40 for violation of user rights index. The report said, globally, Pakistan is among the worst 10 countries in terms of internet and digital media freedom.
About the Report
The Freedom of the Net report looks at three key categories, aspects of internet freedom: obstacles to access, limits on content, and violation of user rights. Each aspect is further broken down into questions and subquestions that are assigned point values. Summed up, each country’s final score falls between 0 (least free) and 100 (most free).
