Taiwan had the freest Internet in Asia in this year’s Freedom on the Net report, and the seventh freest globally.
Freedom House today published its annual report on Internet freedom in 72 countries worldwide.
With a total score of 79 out of 100, Taiwan’s Internet was considered “free” by the Washington-based research nonprofit, which is funded by the US Congress, but run independently.
Photo courtesy of Freedom House
The report praised Taiwan’s efforts to combat misinformation in the lead-up to January’s elections, saying its “transparent, decentralized and collaborative approach ... stands as a global model.”
It mentioned the ability for people to submit claims on the Cofacts platform for fact-checking by both professional and community contributors.
False narratives about foreign relations, especially relations with the US, were dominant on Line, the report said.
It also mentioned a law passed in June last year that allows candidates to report deepfakes of themselves to social media companies.
Overall, the report found that Internet freedom fell for the 14th straight year globally, with more countries seeing declines than rises.
Myanmar and China have the world's worst Internet freedom, with declines reported in a number of other countries led by Kyrgyzstan, the study found.
The further deterioration in Myanmar, a Beijing ally where the military seized power in 2021, marks the first time in a decade that any country has matched China for the lowest score in the report.
In Myanmar, the junta has harshly cracked down on dissent since ending a decade-long experiment in democracy, with systematic censorship and surveillance of online speech.
Freedom House pointed to new measures imposed by the junta in May to block access to virtual private networks, which residents use to bypass Internet controls.
China has developed a sweeping "great firewall" meant to root out content that poses a threat to the Chinese Communist Party.
Asked about the report, Beijing said its people "enjoy various rights and freedoms in accordance with the law."
"As for the so-called report, I think it is entirely baseless and made with ulterior motives," Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Mao Ning (毛寧) said.
The country that showed the biggest drop in the survey was Kyrgyzstan, where authorities shuttered Web site Kloop, which is largely funded by US-based NGOs and had reported on allegations by an opposition leader of torture in custody.
Other countries downgraded included Azerbaijan — host of next month's COP29 climate summit — for detaining people over social media posts, and Iraq, where a prominent activist was slain after Facebook posts encouraging protests.
The biggest gains were seen in Zambia, with the report saying the country saw growing space for online activism.
Iceland was ranked the most free online, followed by Estonia and then Canada, Chile and Costa Rica.
The US held steady at 76 on a 100-point scale, with Freedom House renewing concern about the lack of safeguards against government surveillance.
It also pointed to actions by at least 19 US states against the misuse of artificial intelligence in election campaigns.
Left-Handed Girl (左撇子女孩), a film by Taiwanese director Tsou Shih-ching (鄒時擎) and cowritten by Oscar-winning director Sean Baker, won the Gan Foundation Award for Distribution at the Cannes Critics’ Week on Wednesday. The award, which includes a 20,000 euro (US$22,656) prize, is intended to support the French release of a first or second feature film by a new director. According to Critics’ Week, the prize would go to the film’s French distributor, Le Pacte. "A melodrama full of twists and turns, Left-Handed Girl retraces the daily life of a single mother and her two daughters in Taipei, combining the irresistible charm of
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is pushing for residents of Kinmen and Lienchiang counties to acquire Chinese ID cards in a bid to “blur national identities,” a source said. The efforts are part of China’s promotion of a “Kinmen-Xiamen twin-city living sphere, including a cross-strait integration pilot zone in China’s Fujian Province,” the source said. “The CCP is already treating residents of these outlying islands as Chinese citizens. It has also intensified its ‘united front’ efforts and infiltration of those islands,” the source said. “There is increasing evidence of espionage in Kinmen, particularly of Taiwanese military personnel being recruited by the
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
RSS