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Internet Freedom Around the World Declines for 11th Consecutive Year

196 points by infodocket 5y ago

treeman79 5y ago
Getting scary when you hold an option that’s not approved while living in Canada and your family in China is threatened. https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/09/18/a-chinese-student-in-canada-had-two-followers-on-twitter-he-still-didnt-escape-beijings-threats-over-online-activity.html https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/09/18/a-chinese-stu... How long until people with no family ties to China find they face legal consequences for displeasing China. Maybe you get evicted suddenly, or your employment is terminated because your company gets a nasty letter, or is even owned by China. Can’t see this trend reversing, only accelerating.
demosito666 5y ago
As does freedom in general. Societies at large have succumbed to securocracy and censorship in all aspects of life. This is one of a few worldwide megatrends that will have major impact on future generations.
fsflover 5y ago
If you want to support the fight for the Internet freedom, consider donating to FSF, EFF and using devices recommended by them, especially the first: https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11/ https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11/.
EarthIsHome 5y ago
I'm very skeptical about anything coming out of Freedom House when its chair was the co-author of the Patriot Act... like come on. There is quite an obvious conflict of interest in what this organization puts out. More often than not, these types of organizations are used to justify support for western action in what they call "non-free" countries. It works. Instead, I think we should focus more on improving the majority of lives of the people in the US than focusing on countries abroad.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  Can you find a source that disproves what they're saying? I'm kinda tired of this general idea that if you dislike the person/source that's making a claim then the claim itself is inaccurate.
  - pasabagi 5y ago
    Generally I agree, but thinktanks exist to produce studies that strengthen a pre-established political position. Taking them as an objective source is misunderstanding what a thinktank is for.
    - CountDrewku 5y ago
      Bias and objectivity are not mutually exclusive.
- crazy_horse 5y ago
  What's the alternative? I'll tell you scientists are dying for good information (probably really are). IN a lot of authoritarian countries it does not exist, for obvious reasons. Freedom House, yeah, it has an agenda, but at the end of the day it's that data or none at all. It is the job of people using the data, not posting comments about it to do a more thorough review than it has connections, therefore, not useful. Do you have a specific issue with the ratings? We have to ask these questions and do. We adjust our priors accordingly. > Instead, I think we should focus more on improving the majority of lives of the people in the US than focusing on countries abroad. Do me a favor and search for "human rights" on that page. That's kind of the whole point for a lot of but not all of these contributors. Oh, and if you care about the US - the US scores are declining.
  - diffCtx 5y ago
    Given how easy it is to hide conflict of interest when presenting findings, I’d say it’s commenters jobs to criticize the source This is forever human stuff, using a computer does nothing to remove bias if the inputs are the usual garbage anti-human, authoritarian bias. Human language preferences go out of style. Perhaps the Evangelicals should have had more sympathy for the indigenous tribes similar complaints. The leopard was never supposed to eat SOMEONES face. It always does.
ldjkfkdsjnv 5y ago
I just flat out dont believe this at all. Certain areas of the internet are increasingly censored, but its never been easier to find a group of like minded people. All of these articles about FB/Google/Nation States and the like that are killing the internet are really just click bait. You cant stop the free use of technology, nothing will. Just recently I have been astounded by the amount of useful high quality open source software. The world is OPEN
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  Take a poll of users on here. I guarantee you that 90%+ of them want all those places you listed censored as well. There's a cultural shift to shut down dissenting opinions and provide places where only like minded people associate. This is inherently bad for everyone. You don't change anyone's opinion with segregation. You just enforce their current stances.
  - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
    Maybe you ought to actually take that poll before you guarantee the results...
    - CountDrewku 5y ago
      You can look at the comments on this post and the downvotes I received just for saying it. EVERYTIME I mention something about this on hackernews I'm downvoted. The sentiment on here is obvious. How about this... prove me wrong. Post something about disagreement with COVID or Biden and see how it goes for you. You'll be lucky if you don't get flagged immediately.
      - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
        The downvotes don't prove that you're right. I downvoted you, not for saying that places are being censored, but for claiming that 90% of the people here supported the censorship. I don't think we do. You could be downvoted for two reasons: Either for claiming that we're pro-censorship when we're not, or for pointing out that we're pro-censorship when we are. My money is on the first reason.
CivBase 5y ago
> The United States’ score declined for the fifth consecutive year. False, misleading, and manipulated information continued to proliferate online, even affecting public acceptance of the 2020 presidential election results. The new administration took promising steps to enforce stronger protections for internet users. Why does the proliferation of misinformation imply a lack of freedom? Surely it should be the opposite.
- vkou 5y ago
  Do you imply that freedom would be increased, if we increased the amount of communication 100-fold, by flooding the Internet with 99% spam? This seems to be a natural corollary to your argument.
  - CivBase 5y ago
    ...yes? Absolutely yes. Freedom would certainly increase if we allowed that to happen. How could anything else be true? It may not be healthy, enjoyable, or productive, but it would definitely be more free. I never argued that 100% freedom is good. Every law we have is effectively a limitation of freedom. But this isn't about determining what freedoms should be protected. This is about an organization who has taken it upon themselves to quantify freedom and by the looks of it their methods for doing so are illogical.
    - vkou 5y ago
      If I can't communicate with you, because every communication channel is flooded with noise, and there's five people shouting in my and your ears, how am I more free? How is this situation any different from me being unable to communicate with you, period?
      - CivBase 5y ago
        In what scenario would the proliferation of misinformation result in you being outright unable to communicate with me? The internet is already flooded with spam, but AFAIK that has never had an adverse affect on our ability to directly communicate with one another.
pizza234 5y ago
The infograph reports also USA among the countries arresting people because of social media posts, in this case, Twitter. I wonder if it's this case (or one of them): https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/twitter-troll-arrested-for-election-interference-related-to-disinformation-campaign/ar-BB1d9kNR https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/twitter-troll-arrest....
eynsham 5y ago
I’m generally sceptical of attempts to quantify concepts like ‘internet freedom’.⁰ However, the conclusion is probably right, insofar as it’s meaningful to refer to internet freedom ‘around the world’, even going on a qualitative approach. The long-term trend is the spread of China-style internet controls at the very least in non-democracies.¹ There is not much stopping this process except bureaucratic inertia. It is in the interests of the zhongnanhai not to have to interact with a world set on democratic norms contrary to its interests. It is in the interests of local governments to be able to control the threat of dissent on the internet. Although there are some unsung victories (e.g. in Malawi, Zambia, and maybe Sudan) in which incumbents were thrown out at least partly by movements in support of constitutional democracy, just as many countries are slipping away from constitutional democracy, so the pool of dictatorships open to Chinese-style internet controls is at the very least not shrinking very fast. In the West, it’s very hard to find principled defenders of freedom of expression in any political party, and the same applies to internet freedom. If the legal situation is right, judges are more attached to it. 0: for the reasons outlined at https://samzdat.com/2018/03/26/enter-a-search-term-e-g-democracy/ https://samzdat.com/2018/03/26/enter-a-search-term-e-g-democ... 1: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-internet-surveillance-idUSKCN1N63KE https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-internet-surveilla...
- dane-pgp 5y ago
  One way I've imagined that "internet freedom" could be measured objectively (if not necessarily accurately) is simply to measure what percentage of the web is available in each country. The word "simply" perhaps doesn't belong in that sentence, but let's assume for a moment that 1) it is possible to enumerate every possible website, without duplication, 2) it is possible to say definitively whether a given site is accessible in a given country, and 3) that sites which apply their own geoblocks count as "available" everywhere (to avoid having to decide whether the block is the fault of the host or requester's government). Unfortunately that system is still probably too simplistic, as there are likely to be sites which almost every country agrees shouldn't be reachable, but the hosting jurisdiction doesn't have the motivation or resources to shut it down. To account for this scenario, a site should be excluded from the list if it is unavailable in more than half the countries in the world, representing more than half the population of the world. I'm not sure how useful this objective measure would be, but it could allow the problem of censorship to be discussed in a politically neutral way. Oh, and scores for countries should be reduced by a third if the country bans Tor, and another third if it also bans VPNs.
71a54xd 5y ago
Well yeah, because supposedly "free speech" is a problem now. Sad state of affairs, such a childish nearsighted worldview to hold.
pyronik19 5y ago
They arrested a dude in Scottland because he taught his dog to do a Nazi salut as a joke on his gf..... they actually prosecuted him for this.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
VLM 5y ago
Ironic to see this on the front page along with the article "Misinformation on Reddit has become unmanageable, 3 Alberta moderators say (cbc.ca)" which is basically a sob story that three people are having a hard time forcing their beliefs upon unwilling communities. How sad we should feel that censors have to work so hard, etc...
beprogrammed 5y ago
World Scores https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores
screye 5y ago
Irrespective of the veracity of the claim, FreedomHouse is not a source worth trusting on an evidence loving platform like HN. A lot of other survey orgs like Pew Research or 538 are lot more thorough, and frequently reach conclusions in complete contradiction with freedomhouse. I would not take them as a reliable source for anything.
m0zg 5y ago
I think the real situation here is that people are becoming more aware of the profound lack of freedom that already existed. Much like we've become aware that our "free press", for example, is just a propaganda bullhorn to sell us on bullshit multi-trillion dollar wars and other giveaways to billionaire donors to politicians.
flixic 5y ago
So, China is the worst because of censorship (strictly controlled information), and US is in a bad spot because of too much misinformation (too little control on information). I'm struggling to understand this "measurement".
Proven 5y ago
> The United States’ score declined for the fifth consecutive year. False, misleading, and manipulated information continued to proliferate online, even affecting public acceptance of the 2020 presidential election results. The new administration took promising steps to enforce stronger protections for internet users. How the hell did this make it into the report??? How does (poorly) used freedom of speech endager freedom? It doesn't! And they still manage to reach the incredible conclusion that Biden administration, which we know has been involved in "assisting" Sillicon Valley fascsits in determining what's fake news, is somehow going to "help". That is completely insane and totally discredits the entire report.
helloworld11 5y ago
One knows that the narrative for what constitutes internet freedom (and as its root freedom of expression in general) has become severely warped by very recent ideological politics when the highly ambiguous term "misinformation" is now a black mark. If freedom of expression is anything at all, it's the right to espouse beliefs and ideas whose veracity wasn't first approved by any central body of people who claim to know what's best for the rest of society, even if those ideas are often full of shit and half-reasoned arguments... Truly, a total upturning of obvious ideas around freedom of expression.

196 points by infodocket 5y ago

Getting scary when you hold an option that’s not approved while living in Canada and your family in China is threatened. https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/09/18/a-chinese-student-in-canada-had-two-followers-on-twitter-he-still-didnt-escape-beijings-threats-over-online-activity.html https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/09/18/a-chinese-stu... How long until people with no family ties to China find they face legal consequences for displeasing China. Maybe you get evicted suddenly, or your employment is terminated because your company gets a nasty letter, or is even owned by China. Can’t see this trend reversing, only accelerating.

demosito666 5y ago

As does freedom in general. Societies at large have succumbed to securocracy and censorship in all aspects of life. This is one of a few worldwide megatrends that will have major impact on future generations.

fsflover 5y ago

If you want to support the fight for the Internet freedom, consider donating to FSF, EFF and using devices recommended by them, especially the first: https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11/ https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/v11/.

EarthIsHome 5y ago

I'm very skeptical about anything coming out of Freedom House when its chair was the co-author of the Patriot Act... like come on. There is quite an obvious conflict of interest in what this organization puts out. More often than not, these types of organizations are used to justify support for western action in what they call "non-free" countries. It works. Instead, I think we should focus more on improving the majority of lives of the people in the US than focusing on countries abroad.

CountDrewku 5y ago
Can you find a source that disproves what they're saying? I'm kinda tired of this general idea that if you dislike the person/source that's making a claim then the claim itself is inaccurate.
- pasabagi 5y ago
  Generally I agree, but thinktanks exist to produce studies that strengthen a pre-established political position. Taking them as an objective source is misunderstanding what a thinktank is for.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    Bias and objectivity are not mutually exclusive.
crazy_horse 5y ago
What's the alternative? I'll tell you scientists are dying for good information (probably really are). IN a lot of authoritarian countries it does not exist, for obvious reasons. Freedom House, yeah, it has an agenda, but at the end of the day it's that data or none at all. It is the job of people using the data, not posting comments about it to do a more thorough review than it has connections, therefore, not useful. Do you have a specific issue with the ratings? We have to ask these questions and do. We adjust our priors accordingly. > Instead, I think we should focus more on improving the majority of lives of the people in the US than focusing on countries abroad. Do me a favor and search for "human rights" on that page. That's kind of the whole point for a lot of but not all of these contributors. Oh, and if you care about the US - the US scores are declining.
- diffCtx 5y ago
  Given how easy it is to hide conflict of interest when presenting findings, I’d say it’s commenters jobs to criticize the source This is forever human stuff, using a computer does nothing to remove bias if the inputs are the usual garbage anti-human, authoritarian bias. Human language preferences go out of style. Perhaps the Evangelicals should have had more sympathy for the indigenous tribes similar complaints. The leopard was never supposed to eat SOMEONES face. It always does.

ldjkfkdsjnv 5y ago

I just flat out dont believe this at all. Certain areas of the internet are increasingly censored, but its never been easier to find a group of like minded people. All of these articles about FB/Google/Nation States and the like that are killing the internet are really just click bait. You cant stop the free use of technology, nothing will. Just recently I have been astounded by the amount of useful high quality open source software. The world is OPEN

CountDrewku 5y ago
Take a poll of users on here. I guarantee you that 90%+ of them want all those places you listed censored as well. There's a cultural shift to shut down dissenting opinions and provide places where only like minded people associate. This is inherently bad for everyone. You don't change anyone's opinion with segregation. You just enforce their current stances.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Maybe you ought to actually take that poll before you guarantee the results...
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    You can look at the comments on this post and the downvotes I received just for saying it. EVERYTIME I mention something about this on hackernews I'm downvoted. The sentiment on here is obvious. How about this... prove me wrong. Post something about disagreement with COVID or Biden and see how it goes for you. You'll be lucky if you don't get flagged immediately.
    - AnimalMuppet 5y ago
      The downvotes don't prove that you're right. I downvoted you, not for saying that places are being censored, but for claiming that 90% of the people here supported the censorship. I don't think we do. You could be downvoted for two reasons: Either for claiming that we're pro-censorship when we're not, or for pointing out that we're pro-censorship when we are. My money is on the first reason.

CivBase 5y ago

vkou 5y ago
Do you imply that freedom would be increased, if we increased the amount of communication 100-fold, by flooding the Internet with 99% spam? This seems to be a natural corollary to your argument.
- CivBase 5y ago
  ...yes? Absolutely yes. Freedom would certainly increase if we allowed that to happen. How could anything else be true? It may not be healthy, enjoyable, or productive, but it would definitely be more free. I never argued that 100% freedom is good. Every law we have is effectively a limitation of freedom. But this isn't about determining what freedoms should be protected. This is about an organization who has taken it upon themselves to quantify freedom and by the looks of it their methods for doing so are illogical.
  - vkou 5y ago
    If I can't communicate with you, because every communication channel is flooded with noise, and there's five people shouting in my and your ears, how am I more free? How is this situation any different from me being unable to communicate with you, period?
    - CivBase 5y ago
      In what scenario would the proliferation of misinformation result in you being outright unable to communicate with me? The internet is already flooded with spam, but AFAIK that has never had an adverse affect on our ability to directly communicate with one another.

pizza234 5y ago

The infograph reports also USA among the countries arresting people because of social media posts, in this case, Twitter. I wonder if it's this case (or one of them): https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/twitter-troll-arrested-for-election-interference-related-to-disinformation-campaign/ar-BB1d9kNR https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/twitter-troll-arrest....

eynsham 5y ago

I’m generally sceptical of attempts to quantify concepts like ‘internet freedom’.⁰ However, the conclusion is probably right, insofar as it’s meaningful to refer to internet freedom ‘around the world’, even going on a qualitative approach. The long-term trend is the spread of China-style internet controls at the very least in non-democracies.¹ There is not much stopping this process except bureaucratic inertia. It is in the interests of the zhongnanhai not to have to interact with a world set on democratic norms contrary to its interests. It is in the interests of local governments to be able to control the threat of dissent on the internet. Although there are some unsung victories (e.g. in Malawi, Zambia, and maybe Sudan) in which incumbents were thrown out at least partly by movements in support of constitutional democracy, just as many countries are slipping away from constitutional democracy, so the pool of dictatorships open to Chinese-style internet controls is at the very least not shrinking very fast. In the West, it’s very hard to find principled defenders of freedom of expression in any political party, and the same applies to internet freedom. If the legal situation is right, judges are more attached to it. 0: for the reasons outlined at https://samzdat.com/2018/03/26/enter-a-search-term-e-g-democracy/ https://samzdat.com/2018/03/26/enter-a-search-term-e-g-democ... 1: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-internet-surveillance-idUSKCN1N63KE https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-internet-surveilla...

dane-pgp 5y ago
One way I've imagined that "internet freedom" could be measured objectively (if not necessarily accurately) is simply to measure what percentage of the web is available in each country. The word "simply" perhaps doesn't belong in that sentence, but let's assume for a moment that 1) it is possible to enumerate every possible website, without duplication, 2) it is possible to say definitively whether a given site is accessible in a given country, and 3) that sites which apply their own geoblocks count as "available" everywhere (to avoid having to decide whether the block is the fault of the host or requester's government). Unfortunately that system is still probably too simplistic, as there are likely to be sites which almost every country agrees shouldn't be reachable, but the hosting jurisdiction doesn't have the motivation or resources to shut it down. To account for this scenario, a site should be excluded from the list if it is unavailable in more than half the countries in the world, representing more than half the population of the world. I'm not sure how useful this objective measure would be, but it could allow the problem of censorship to be discussed in a politically neutral way. Oh, and scores for countries should be reduced by a third if the country bans Tor, and another third if it also bans VPNs.

71a54xd 5y ago

Well yeah, because supposedly "free speech" is a problem now. Sad state of affairs, such a childish nearsighted worldview to hold.

pyronik19 5y ago

They arrested a dude in Scottland because he taught his dog to do a Nazi salut as a joke on his gf..... they actually prosecuted him for this.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

VLM 5y ago

Ironic to see this on the front page along with the article "Misinformation on Reddit has become unmanageable, 3 Alberta moderators say (cbc.ca)" which is basically a sob story that three people are having a hard time forcing their beliefs upon unwilling communities. How sad we should feel that censors have to work so hard, etc...

beprogrammed 5y ago

World Scores https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores

screye 5y ago

Irrespective of the veracity of the claim, FreedomHouse is not a source worth trusting on an evidence loving platform like HN. A lot of other survey orgs like Pew Research or 538 are lot more thorough, and frequently reach conclusions in complete contradiction with freedomhouse. I would not take them as a reliable source for anything.

m0zg 5y ago

I think the real situation here is that people are becoming more aware of the profound lack of freedom that already existed. Much like we've become aware that our "free press", for example, is just a propaganda bullhorn to sell us on bullshit multi-trillion dollar wars and other giveaways to billionaire donors to politicians.

flixic 5y ago

So, China is the worst because of censorship (strictly controlled information), and US is in a bad spot because of too much misinformation (too little control on information). I'm struggling to understand this "measurement".

Proven 5y ago

> The United States’ score declined for the fifth consecutive year. False, misleading, and manipulated information continued to proliferate online, even affecting public acceptance of the 2020 presidential election results. The new administration took promising steps to enforce stronger protections for internet users. How the hell did this make it into the report??? How does (poorly) used freedom of speech endager freedom? It doesn't! And they still manage to reach the incredible conclusion that Biden administration, which we know has been involved in "assisting" Sillicon Valley fascsits in determining what's fake news, is somehow going to "help". That is completely insane and totally discredits the entire report.

helloworld11 5y ago

One knows that the narrative for what constitutes internet freedom (and as its root freedom of expression in general) has become severely warped by very recent ideological politics when the highly ambiguous term "misinformation" is now a black mark. If freedom of expression is anything at all, it's the right to espouse beliefs and ideas whose veracity wasn't first approved by any central body of people who claim to know what's best for the rest of society, even if those ideas are often full of shit and half-reasoned arguments... Truly, a total upturning of obvious ideas around freedom of expression.