Internet Freedom in the Asia-Pacific Region Declined in 2023

WASHINGTON—Internet freedom declined across the Asia-Pacific overall, with conditions for human rights online deteriorating in seven countries and improving in only three, according to a new report released today by Freedom House.

The report—Freedom on the Net 2023: The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence—finds that for the ninth consecutive year, China remained the world’s worst environment for internet freedom. China registered a 1-point decline, scoring 9 points on Freedom on the Net’s 100-point scale. Myanmar came close to surpassing it with a score of 10, after declining 2 points. While the Chinese Communist Party’s regime of digital authoritarianism remains severely repressive, the Chinese people showed inspiring resilience. Protests in November 2022 grew into one of the most open challenges to the party in decades, spurring the government toward a rare nationwide policy reversal.  

Other findings on the Asia-Pacific include: 

• Taiwan was the top-performing country in the region, scoring 78 points. The country is rated Free.
• The Philippines suffered the region’s sharpest internet freedom decline (-4). President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., son of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, signed a law requiring all Filipinos to register their SIM cards under their real name, undermining anonymous communication in an already dangerous environment for journalists and activists.
• Sri Lanka had the largest score improvement worldwide (+4). Authorities did not repeat the social media blocks that were imposed in April 2022 during mass antigovernment protests.
• Myanmar’s military has tightened its harsh digital controls over the country since the 2021 coup. Authorities arrested people over simple acts of online dissent and, in one egregious case, executed an activist for his prodemocracy activities on social media.
• India’s score declined (-1) as the government continued to expand its control over online content, invoking emergency powers to block social media platforms from allowing people in the country to view a documentary that reported critically on Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
• Authorities in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan, and Thailand imposed restrictions on the online environment to undermine the opposition ahead of consequential national elections in 2023 and early 2024.
• People were arrested over their online expression in 15 of the 17 countries in the Asia-Pacific covered by the report—all but Australia and Japan.
• 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 the Asia-Pacific, 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 2022 and May 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, Eurasia, Europe, 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.