Press release October 4, 2023
Internet Freedom in Europe Declined Slightly in 2023
Human rights online sank to a new low in Turkey, but there was little change in the rest of the region, with just two other countries experiencing small declines and none earning improvements.
WASHINGTON—Internet freedom in Europe was relatively stable in 2023 as national governments across the European Union refrained from making major changes to content moderation ahead of the August implementation date for the EU-wide Digital Services Act, according to a new report released today by Freedom House.
The report—Freedom on the Net 2023: The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence—found that Turkey remained the only Not Free country in Europe. Turkey also received the region’s largest score decline, losing 2 points for a new score of 30 on the project’s 100-point scale. President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the ruling Justice and Development Party enacted several laws that increased censorship and criminalized online speech, including a draconian law on disinformation. In the run-up to Turkey’s general elections in May 2023, the new legislation was used to silence members of the political opposition as well as critical journalists.
Other findings on Europe include:
- Iceland, despite registering a 1-point decline, retained its status as the world’s best environment for internet freedom for the ninth year in a row, scoring 94 on Freedom on the Net’s 100-point scale. Estonia followed closely with 93 points.
- Of the nine European countries assessed in the report, all are rated Free except Turkey (Not Free) and Hungary (Partly Free).
- In Hungary, a telecommunications company with reported links to the government further consolidated its market position, acquiring a majority of Vodafone’s Hungarian business during the coverage period.
- Serbia experienced a score decline of 1 point as the government continued to propagate disinformation on social media. In 2022, Meta removed more than 5,000 accounts linked to the ruling Serbian Progressive Party that spread progovernment narratives on Facebook.
- In the United Kingdom, the Online Safety Bill, a sweeping piece of legislation that created new obligations for platforms to remove illegal and certain “harmful” content, moved through Parliament during the coverage period, ultimately passing in September 2023.
- The report also found that while advances in artificial intelligence (AI) offer benefits for society, they have been used to increase the scale and efficiency of digital repression. Governments are leveraging automated systems to strengthen their information controls and hone forms of online censorship. Simultaneously, distributors of disinformation have turned to AI tools to fabricate images, audio, and text, further blurring the lines between reality and deception.
Beyond Europe, Freedom on the Net 2023 finds that global internet freedom declined for the 13th consecutive year. The environment for human rights online deteriorated in 29 countries, while only 20 countries registered net gains. In 53 countries, people faced legal repercussions for expressing themselves online, while people were physically assaulted or killed for their online commentary in a record 43 countries.
Freedom on the Net is an annual study of human rights in the digital sphere. The project assesses internet freedom in 70 countries, accounting for almost 89 percent of the world’s internet users. This report, the 13th in its series, covered developments between June 1, 2022, and May 31, 2023. More than 85 analysts and advisers contributed to this year’s edition, using a standard methodology to determine each country’s internet freedom score on a 100-point scale, with 21 separate indicators pertaining to obstacles to access, limits on content, and violations of user rights.
Click here to read the full report and policy recommendations. Click here to read additional report press releases: Global, Africa, Americas, Asia-Pacific, Eurasia, Middle East.
To schedule an interview with Freedom House experts, please contact Maryam Iftikhar at [email protected] or (202) 747-7064.
Freedom House is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to create a world where all are free. We inform the world about threats to freedom, mobilize global action, and support democracy’s defenders.
