Online freedom is continuing to decline globally, according to a new study, with governments increasingly cracking down on user speech and misinformation on the rise.
The report from Freedom House, a Washington DC-based democracy advocacy group, found internet freedom declined for the fifth year in a row in the US and the 11th year internationally – for two distinct reasons.
Domestically, the lack of regulation in the tech industry has allowed companies to grow beyond reproach and misinformation to flourish online. Abroad, authoritarian governments have harnessed their tight control of the internet to subdue free expression.
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.
The yearly study, which has been published since 1973, uses a standard index to measure internet freedom by country on a 100-point scale. It asks questions about internet infrastructure, government control and obstacles to access, and content regulation. Countries are scored on a scale of 100 points with higher numbers considered more “free”.
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