In a very unsurprising report released yesterday, Cambodia continues to score badly on the world freedom ratings.

Kingdom rated ‘Not Free’ by report
Thu, 2 February 2017

Cambodia earned a “Not Free” rating from Freedom House’s annual Freedom in the World Report yesterday, a label it has received from the American NGO every year since 1995.

Cambodia received a rating of 31 out of 100, a slip of one point from the previous year. The report found that Cambodia’s press was “not free”, while the internet was only “partly free”. The country received low marks for political rights, which earned a six on a seven-point scale, with seven being the worst.

Cambodia also failed to qualify as an “electoral democracy”. Among its ASEAN peers, it only scored better than Brunei, Vietnam and Laos.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/k ... ree-report

John Bingham wrote:The internet is pretty much unrestricted here. Making defaming comments on Facebook isn't though.

And it's so easy to make defaming comments, because the legal definition of "defamation" is very broad. It may include statements that are true, but which are embarrassing or unflattering. Almost anything can be considered defamatory to those who are sensitive about their public image. Trials for defamation on social media have almost become a national pastime.

If it was possible for people to be sued for rude remarks, unflattering comments, and divergences of opinion made on the forum, that would effectively shut us down.

Technically Internet porn is banned, too

Journalist Flees Country Days Before Scheduled Court Date
May 1, 2017
A Radio Free Asia (RFA) journalist, who is scheduled to be questioned in court on Tuesday over allegations that he falsely identified himself during a prison visit with opposition officials last month, left the country for Thailand on Friday, an official said on Sunday...
Mr. Ry, Ms. Sochua and RFA representatives in Washington could not be reached on Sunday, but in a statement released on Thursday, RFA said Mr. Khin Vuthy was innocent of any wrongdoing and that the court summons would not stop the station from delivering the news.
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/jour ... te-128925/

CEOCambodiaNews wrote: ↑Thu Feb 02, 2017 10:02 amIn a very unsurprising report released yesterday, Cambodia continues to score badly on the world freedom ratings.

It really depends on how you define "freedom". In what other country would you pay around $300 for a visa, and then the government would leave you completely alone -- no new questions or new requests -- for the whole year?

eriksank wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2017 12:14 am

CEOCambodiaNews wrote: ↑Thu Feb 02, 2017 10:02 amIn a very unsurprising report released yesterday, Cambodia continues to score badly on the world freedom ratings.

It really depends on how you define "freedom". In what other country would you pay around $300 for a visa, and then the government would leave you completely alone -- no new questions or new requests -- for the whole year?

I think you use more than one paradigm.

WHAT IS FREEDOM IN THE WORLD?

Freedom in the World is Freedom House’s flagship annual report, assessing the condition of political rights and civil liberties around the world. It is composed of numerical ratings and supporting descriptive texts for 195 countries and 14 territories. Freedom in the World has been published since 1973, allowing Freedom House to track global trends in freedom over more than 40 years. It has become the most widely read and cited report of its kind, used on a regular basis by policymakers, journalists, academics, activists, and many others.

“Freedom House’s report is the first and best source available on the state of political and civil rights around the world, equally useful to scholars and practitioners interested in the state of democracy and human freedom.”

Luigi wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2017 10:52 amWHAT IS FREEDOM ... ? It is composed of numerical ratings and supporting descriptive texts for 195 countries and 14 territories.

In their "supporting descriptive texts", The House of "Freedom" probably considers that handing over 70% of your income in taxes and other contributions to the government, so that the government -- and not you -- are "free" to spend it as they please, to be a form of "freedom".

It is one way to look at things, but I look at it in a different way.

if confiscation is the percentage of income that the government confiscates from you, then:

freedom = 100% - confiscation.

If you don't have to pay anything at all, then confiscation=0% and freedom=100%.
If you have to pay 70%, then confiscation=70% and freedom=30%.
If you have to hand over all your income, then confiscation=100% and freedom=0%.

According to this simple formula, Cambodia is one of the most free countries in the world. What is the formula that the House of "Freedom" uses? If they really classify Cambodia as unfree, that means that their calculations are badly flawed.

eriksank wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2017 12:14 am

CEOCambodiaNews wrote: ↑Thu Feb 02, 2017 10:02 amIn a very unsurprising report released yesterday, Cambodia continues to score badly on the world freedom ratings.

It really depends on how you define "freedom". In what other country would you pay around $300 for a visa, and then the government would leave you completely alone -- no new questions or new requests -- for the whole year?

Yes, it really does depend on how you define it.
I consider your notion of freedom highly limited.

taabarang wrote: ↑Tue May 02, 2017 12:51 pmYes, it really does depend on how you define it. I consider your notion of freedom highly limited.

The most important characteristic of a definition is not that it should be correct but that it must be predicatable.

For example, concerning the definition of "a pear", as piece of fruit, It must be possible to construct a predicate function that will reply 'yes' or 'no', if the object presented is a 'pear' or not. It is not particularly important that the function produces errors once in a while. It is much more important that the function actually exists. Removing errors from an existing predicate function, is just a question of incrementally improving it. Therefore, such errors are not important.

The House of Freedom, however, fails to define a predicate function at all.

My function is indeed incomplete, limited, and possibly occasionally faulty, but it exists, and it happily proceeds by objectively classifying countries as 'free', yes or no. Therefore, it is obvious that my definition is vastly superior to theirs. Concerning the House of Freedom, by simply failing to properly predicate the core concept of what they are doing, they are utterly ineffective. What they are doing is therefore a total waste of time. Nobody should take them seriously.