Their methodology seems strongly politically motivated, because they rank Germany very highly despite the repression of speech related to Turkey by journalists

Their methodology seems strongly politically motivated, because they rank Germany very highly despite the repression of speech related to Turkey by journalists in Germany. Germany literally made certain types of speech illegal for geopolitical reasons because of their ties to Turkey. Perhaps these rankings would have been believable 5 years ago, but today, they are not. The United States is also rated much too low here, which also stinks of political motivation. While we do have a President that can't seem to help but open his mouth to release stupidity and toxicity, the US has the strongest legal protections of speech and press in the world, and the only government action against journalists that might shift this belief is the ongoing case with Julian Assange, too recent to have been reflected in these rankings. There is, to my knowledge, only one country which has Constitutionally protected free speech and it's the United States. There are censorship laws on the books in most other countries, either in fact, or in actuality. Germany for instance censors many types of speech. You may have some argument that this is a good thing, but nonetheless it shouldn't rank higher on any unbiased free speech index than the US, and yet here is one in which it is more than 30 positions higher ranked.