This country’s internet freedom is now as bad as China’s, report finds

CNN —

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.”

But a new report out Wednesday shows that internet freedoms in China’s neighbor Myanmar are now just as lacking.

The report from Freedom House, a US government-funded NGO, found that global internet freedom has declined for the 14th consecutive year. China and Myanmar ranked joint last for 2024, with a score of nine out of 100.

Since seizing power in a 2021 coup, Myanmar’s military junta has violently cracked down on dissent, imposing restrictions on online access and speech including widespread internet shutdowns, and built “a mass censorship and surveillance regime,” said the authors of “Freedom on the Net 2024: The Struggle for Trust Online.”

The report points to censorship technology introduced in May that blocked most virtual private networks, or VPNs, “cutting residents off from tools they had relied on to safely and securely bypass internet controls.”

Myanmar’s throttling of internet freedoms was designed to “suppress the activities of civilian prodemocracy activists and armed resistance groups,” the report said.

Human rights groups and United Nations experts have long documented evidence to support the report’s claims. In 2022, the UN special rapporteur for human rights in Myanmar said the junta was building a “digital dictatorship” to curtail online freedoms and ramp up surveillance of civilians.

HAIKOU, CHINA — SEPTEMBER 15: American rapper Kanye West performs during his Vultures Listening Experience at Wuyuan River Stadium on September 15, 2024 in Haikou, Hainan Province of China. (Photo by Luo Yunfei/China