International human rights organization Freedom House published its annual report Freedom on the Net 2018.
This year, Kyrgyzstan is again among the countries with «partly free» Internet. However, the republic’s indicator has deteriorated to 38 points (37 points in 2017).
Blocking of political, social and religious content, manipulation of online discussions by progovernment commentators are the key Internet controls in Kyrgyzstan.
Freedom on the Net is a comprehensive study of the Internet freedom in 65 countries, covering 87 percent of Internet users in the world and annually monitoring improvements and declines in the indicators of freedom on the Net.
Researchers rated each country on a scale from 0 to 100 — the less points a country scored, the higher its Internet freedom is.
In general, according to researchers, the Internet is growing less free around the world, and democracy itself is withering under its influence.
Disinformation and propaganda disseminated online have poisoned the public sphere. The unbridled collection of personal data has broken down traditional notions of privacy. As a result of these trends, global internet freedom declined for the eighth consecutive year in 2018.
China was once again the worst abuser of internet freedom in 2018, taking the last place in the ranking with 88 points.
The countries with the freest Internet are Estonia (6 points), Iceland (6 points), Canada (15 points), Germany (19) and Australia (21 points).
Kazakhstan (62 points), Belarus (64), Russia (67) and Uzbekistan (75 points) are among the countries with «not free Internet». According to researchers, Georgia (25 points) and Armenia (27) are the countries with «free Internet.»
