At home and on the international stage, authoritarians are on a campaign to divide the open internet into a patchwork of repressive enclaves. More governments than ever are exerting control over what people can access and share online by blocking foreign websites, hoarding personal data, and centralizing their countries’ technical infrastructure. As a result of these trends, global internet freedom has declined for a 12th consecutive year.

Global internet freedom declined for the 12th consecutive year. The sharpest downgrades were documented in Russia, Myanmar, Sudan, and Libya. Following the Russian military’s illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin dramatically intensified its ongoing efforts to suppress domestic dissent and accelerated the closure or exile of the country’s remaining independent media outlets. In at least 53 countries, users faced legal repercussions for expressing themselves online, often leading to draconian prison terms.

Governments are breaking apart the global internet to create more controllable online spaces. A record number of national governments blocked websites with nonviolent political, social, or religious content, undermining the rights to free expression and access to information. A majority of these blocks targeted sources located outside of the country. New national laws posed an additional threat to the free flow of information by centralizing technical infrastructure and applying flawed regulations to social media platforms and user data.

The Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine puts internet freedom under threat
Internet freedom in Russia declined by seven points in the period surrounding the government’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, reaching an all-time low and representing this year’s largest national decline in Freedom on the Net.

China was the world’s worst environment for internet freedom for the eighth consecutive year.

Cowshed Cowboy wrote: ↑Wed Oct 19, 2022 8:49 am Didn't realise Vietnam was so heavily controlled.

cautious colin wrote: ↑Wed Oct 19, 2022 1:34 pm

hanno wrote: ↑Wed Oct 19, 2022 12:23 pm

Cowshed Cowboy wrote: ↑Wed Oct 19, 2022 8:49 am Didn't realise Vietnam was so heavily controlled.

Me neither, and I live here. Some sites such as BBC are not accessible but it is nothing like the Chinese internet wall; a simple VPN gets around it.

Yes, easy enough, but the fact you need a VPN means it is not free. It just means there firewall isn't very good

...... The project assesses internet freedom in 70 countries, accounting for 89 percent of the world’s internet users.
This report, the 12th in its series, covered developments between June 2021 and May 2022. More than 80 analysts and advisers contributed to this year’s edition, using a standard methodology to determine each country’s internet freedom score on a 100-point scale, with 21 separate indicators pertaining to obstacles to access, limits on content, and violations of user rights. .