China and Pakistan are among the bottom 10 countries in internet freedom, according to a Washington-based Freedom House report.
The international freedom advocacy group Freedom House published a report titled "Freedom on the Net 2021: The Global Drive to Control Big Tech,” which claimed that global internet freedom declined for the 11th consecutive year.
A score based data was put out along with the rankings. China was ranked at the bottom with just 10 points, Iran on second last with 16, Myanmar- 17, and Cuba- 21 followed on. Pakistan was ranked at the 7th spot with 25 points.
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On the other hand, Iceland, Canada and Germany were among the top 10 countries with greater internet freedom.
The report called the Chinese government “the world’s worst abuser of internet freedom”, citing new legislation criminalizing certain expressions online and draconian prison terms issued to activists for online dissent - including an 18-year sentence against one activist for distributing a paper criticizing the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
This year, officials in India pressured Twitter to remove protest-related and critical commentary and to stop flagging manipulated content shared by the ruling party.
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Freedom House cited a growing lack of diversity among sources of online information in the US that allowed conspiracies and misinformation to rise, an issue that was gravely underscored during the 2020 elections and the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol.
“The spread of false and conspiracist content about the November 2020 elections shook the foundations of the American political system,” the report said.
“In the high stakes battles between governments and tech companies, human rights are the main casualties,” said Allie Funk, a senior research analyst who co-wrote the report, in a news briefing on Monday.
The ‘Freedom of the Net’ report is an annual analysis of the status of human rights on digital platforms. This year’s edition, the 11th of its kind, covers the period from June, 2020 to May, 2021 and accounts for 88% of global internet users in its assessment of 70 countries.
Here’s the list of the top 10 countries with the highest level of internet freedom:
Iceland
Estonia
Canada
Costa Rica
Taiwan
Germany
France
UK
Georgia
Japan
Here’s the list of the top 10 countries with the lowest level of internet freedom:
China
Iran
Myanmar
Cuba
Vietnam
Saudi Arabia
Pakistan
Egypt
UAE
Ethiopia
