China and Pakistan are among the top 10 countries in the world where internet freedom has been on the decline, stated an international freedom advocacy group. Washington-based Freedom House has published a report titled "Freedom on the Net 2021: The Global Drive to Control Big Tech" which claimed global internet freedom declined for the 11th consecutive year. The report raised concerns over the rules proposed by Pakistan that could further damage cyber liberty.
Myanmar, Belarus, and Uganda witnessed the greatest deteriorations in internet freedom amid electoral and constitutional crises. Myanmar reported a massive 14-point decline, the largest since the group started the documentation project. Myanmar’s military recently captured power in a coup and frequently shut down the internet to crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.
On the other hand, Iceland, Canada and Germany were among the top 10 countries with greater internet freedom.
The report has measured the level of internet freedom for 70 countries and assigns them numerical scores ranging from 100 (the freest nation) to zero (the least free). The report determines the level of internet freedom by examining three broad categories: obstacles to access; limits on content; and violations of user rights.
Countries with scores between 70 to 100 are designated as ‘Free’ on internet freedom status while those with points between 40 to 69 are designated as ‘Partly-free’. Countries scoring less than 39 are designated as ‘Not free’.
China remained the world’s worst abuser of internet freedom for the seventh consecutive year and failed to score a single point in the ‘violation of user rights’ category. “The ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is tightening its control over the state bureaucracy, the media, online speech, religious groups, universities, businesses, and civil society associations, and it has undermined its own already modest rule-of-law reforms,” the report says.