A study conducted by Freedom House has shown that Myanmar has joined China in having the worst internet freedom environment. Internet freedom in Myanmar has started deteriorating, and the situation will be worse than in China. The study also states to the media that Myanmar is the first and only country that has already started to go lower than China with no internet freedom.
In 2024, Kyrgyzstan also faced a drastic drop in internet freedom as the President and other major authorities shut down and silenced digital media. Apart from these reported cases, The Freedom on the Net (FOTN) conducted a survey and found out that out of the 72 countries, 27 countries have already declined access to the internet and online expression.
In today’s world, with the internet being a major part of people’s lives the drastic drop in ratings regarding the decline of freedom to online expression has become a concern. The Freedom House being one of the most recognised research groups, believes it to be the fault of a campaign led by the military junta in Myanmar.
The military has been in power for over four years in Myanmar and from then on the country has been through political disrupts and chaos. Myanmar is already close to being one of the countries with highly restrictive internet freedom. Since the Military dictatorship began in Myanmar, they have arrested hundreds of common people using the internet for online speech and expression.
The military also established an advanced technology in May 2024 to block all the available VPN services. The VPN services were the last option for the residents to connect with the outside world. The main reason behind such a ban on the digital world was to silence the voices of pro-democratic civilians and activists.
Considering the reports from 2014 and 2015, Myanmar gained a good score from the survey conducted. According to surveys and research conducted over the years, China has remained on the bottom list regarding basic internet services and freedom and has shown no improvements in the score for the past nine years. The Chinese government has banned official websites and imposed heavy fines on people using VPN network services. The internet ban in China ranks back to the implementation of the Great Firewall, which blocks access to all foreign websites.
The report put a strong emphasis on the fact that it has been 14 consecutive years that worldwide internet freedom has started to decline. China and Myanmar have joined hands with a similar score of 9 out of 100.
Reports have come out that the United Nations and the Human Rights Group have come together to raise the issue to the world and have already submitted many researches and surveys to prove the case. The UN has already brought out an efficient finding regarding the dictatorship covering online freedom in Myanmar in 2022. The Freedom House has also put in great effort in bringing this matter of concern to the media and the public.
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