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Online freedom declining worldwide, U.S. included, democracy watchdog says

Online freedom declining worldwide, U.S. included, democracy watchdog says

A new report from Freedom House states that internet freedom is declining throughout the world. Hong Kong is one place where protesters have been able to connect and communicate using the internet and social media.

Billy H.C. Kwok, Getty Images

The internet and social media, often engines of democracy movements fighting powerful governments, are now more often being used as weapons against democracy and freedom.

That is the depressing conclusion of Freedom House's annual assessment, released Tuesday, which reported a ninth consecutive decline in internet freedom across the globe — including in the United States, where its very high marks nonetheless slipped for the third straight year.

While this country remains a beacon of internet freedom, Freedom House said, it was troubled by the expanded surveillance of the public by law enforcement and immigration agencies using social media and the internet. And it noted how disinformation campaigns continued to surround major political events of the past year such as the Senate confirmation hearings for Justice Brett Kavanaugh of the Supreme Court.


In addition, the United States was one of 26 countries where internal sources used the internet to publish and disseminate false or misleading information during elections in the past year. Only four countries conducted elections during that period without any such interference.

Mike Abramowitz, president of Freedom House, an independent watchdog organization that promotes freedom and democracy, tried during a media call to highlight bright spots around the world, including the use of social media to sustain and magnify this year's protests in Hong Kong.

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But the report, by Adrian Shahbaz and Allie Funk, pulls no punches in stating that repressive regimes have converted internet tools "into instruments for political distortion and societal control."

Among the major trends this year are:

  • Political leaders using the internet to secretly shape opinion, something happening in 38 of 65 countries that were surveyed. That is a new high.
  • Countries using the internet and social media to meddle in the political workings of other countries. China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and others have joined Russia in these efforts, the report states.
  • Mass surveillance being conducted via the internet and being used to silence opposing voices in some cases. A record 47 of the 65 countries assessed featured arrests of users for political, social or religious speech.

Thirty-three of the 65 countries Freedom House studies registered overall declines in internet freedom since June 2018. Sudan, Brazil and Bangladesh were among those with the biggest drops.

China earned the ignominious title of the world's worst abuser of internet freedom — for the fourth year in a row.

Sixteen countries earned improvements in their scores. Ethiopia, where the new prime minister has loosened restrictions on the internet, saw the biggest positive jump.

"The future of internet freedom rests on our ability to fix social media," Shahbaz, the report's primary author, concluded. "Since these are mainly American platforms, the United States must be a leader in promoting transparency and accountability in the digital age."

The watchdog group, which gets most of its funding from the federal government, is best known for the annual report it's been issuing since 1973 assessing the state of freedom around the world. The United States dropped to 52nd on the roster of 87 countries categorized as free in the rankings issued in February, because a recent "decline in the rule of law" put American democracy "on a level with Greece, Croatia, and Mongolia" and well below such democracies as Germany and Britain.

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Our question about the price of freedom received a light response. We asked:

What price have you, your friends or your family paid for the freedom we enjoy? And what price would you willingly pay?

It was a question born out of the horror of images from Ukraine. We hope that the news about the Jan. 6 commission and Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination was so riveting that this question was overlooked. We considered another possibility that the images were so traumatic, that our readers didn’t want to consider the question for themselves. We saw the price Ukrainians paid.

One response came from a veteran who noted that being willing to pay the ultimate price for one’s country and surviving was a gift that was repaid over and over throughout his life. “I know exactly what it is like to accept that you are a dead man,” he said. What most closely mirrored my own experience was a respondent who noted her lack of payment in blood, sweat or tears, yet chose to volunteer in helping others exercise their freedom.

Personally, my price includes service to our nation, too. The price I paid was the loss of my former life, which included a husband, a home and a seemingly secure job to enter the political fray with a message of partisan healing and hope for the future. This work isn’t risking my life, but it’s the price I’ve paid.

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Given the earnest question we asked, and the meager responses, I am also left wondering if we think at all about the price of freedom? Or have we all become so entitled to our freedom that we fail to defend freedom for others? Or was the question poorly timed?

I read another respondent’s words as an indicator of his pacifism. And another veteran who simply stated his years of service. And that was it. Four responses to a question that lives in my heart every day. We look forward to hearing Your Take on other topics. Feel free to share questions to which you’d like to respond.

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