News:The Freedom of Net report 2019 titled “The Crisis of Social Media” was released by the The Freedom House, an international watchdog.
Facts:
About Freedom on the Net:
- Freedom on the Net is a comprehensive study of internet freedom in 65 nations across the globe.The report covers 87% of the world’s total internet users.
- The annual report tracks declines and improvement in internet freedom.It has chosen specific countries to represent diverse geographical regions.
- The report provides the overall scores to countries using a 21-question research methodology which addresses freedom of expression, internet access and privacy issues.
Key takeaways from the report:
- The report assessed 65 countries and 33 among them showed an overall decline in internet freedom since June 2018.Only 16 countries showed improvements in their internet freedom status.
- Some of the countries that showed the biggest decline in internet freedom include Sudan, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.
- India was given an overall score of 55 in the report and the internet freedom status in the country was reported to be ‘partly free’.
- Iceland ranked the highest with an overall score of 95 as it had no civil or criminal cases registered against users for online expression during the coverage period.
- China with an overall score of 10 was adjudged ‘not free’ and as the world’s worst abuser of internet freedom for the fourth consecutive year.
- Pakistan was given a score of 26 and was declared ‘not free’ in internet freedom status for the 9th consecutive year.
