(TibetanReview.net, Oct17’24) –China has done it again, sharing the spot this time with Myanmar: the country with the world’s worst environment for internet freedom, according to the annual ranking by the US-based Freedom House, which released its report Oct 16.
For the past decade, China has consistently ranked last in the world for internet freedom due to its all-pervading online surveillance and content control system dubbed the “Great Firewall,” noted the edition.cnn.com Oct 17.
The organisation’s 2024 Freedom on the Net (FOTN) report assessed internet freedom based on data collected from Jun 2023 to May 2024 in terms of obstacles people face accessing the internet, limits on content and violations of users’ rights. China and Myanmar both scored 9 out of 100 in internet freedom, the lowest among all the countries assessed.
The report says China intensified its efforts to seal off its domestic internet from the global network, blocked international access to certain official websites, and imposed hefty fines on individuals using virtual private networks (VPNs).
“Beijing has persisted in its effort to isolate China’s domestic internet from the rest of the world, blocking international traffic to some government websites and imposing huge fines on people using VPNs. The Chinese government also continued to systematically repress dissent, for example by censoring online discussions about activist and journalist Sun Lin, who died in November 2023 after police beat him in apparent retaliation for his social media posts about protests against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping,” the report says.
China’s censors have reined in blogs, US search giants, and social media – even regulating “likes” of public posts, the report said.
The report from Freedom House, a US government-funded NGO, has found that global internet freedom has declined for the 14th consecutive year.
As expected, China has rejected the report’s findings. Its Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Oct 16 that “Chinese citizens enjoy all rights and freedoms in accordance with the law.”
“this so-called report is completely false and has ulterior motives,” the edition.cnn.com reported quoted Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning as saying.