China confirmed its status as the world’s worst abuser of internet freedom for the fourth consecutive year, says the Freedom House.
China confirmed its status as the world’s worst abuser of internet freedom for the fourth consecutive year, according to a report by an internet watchdog.
The Freedom House, an international internet rights group in its report titled ‘Freedom on the Net’ (FoTN) 2019: The Crisis of Social Media said censorship in China reached unprecedented extremes as the government enhanced its information controls in advance of the 30th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre and in the face of widespread anti-government protests in Hong Kong.
In a relatively new tactic, administrators closed individual accounts on the hugely popular WeChat social media platform for any sort of “deviant” behaviour, including minor breaches such as commenting on environmental disasters, which encouraged pervasive self-censorship, the report said.
The report also said that the officials have reported removing tens of thousands of accounts for allegedly “harmful” content on a quarterly basis.
It further said that the campaign cut individuals off from a multifaceted tool that has become essential to everyday life in China, used for purposes ranging from transportation to banking.
Iceland became the world’s best protector of internet freedom, having registered no civil or criminal cases against users for online expression during the coverage period, according to its study.
Freedom on the Net is a comprehensive study of internet freedom in 65 countries around the globe, covering 87% of the world’s internet users.
It tracks improvements and declines in internet freedom conditions each year.
