Internet Freedom in Eurasia Declined in 2023

WASHINGTON—Internet freedom in Eurasia fell as the impact of the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continued to reverberate across the region, 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 Belarus experienced the largest decline (-3) in internet freedom in the region, scoring 25 points on Freedom on the Net’s 100-point scale, as the Lukashenka regime imposed the mass blocking of websites, enacted strict laws criminalizing online speech, and arrested individuals for their online activity. Russia, which ranked as the region’s worst environment for internet freedom, tightened control over online media and introduced onerous rules that force companies to install technology that facilitates more advanced surveillance and censorship.

Other findings on Eurasia include: 

• In some areas of Ukraine occupied by the Russian military, Russian authorities rerouted internet connections through Russian networks, preventing Ukrainians living in these areas from accessing social media platforms and messaging apps, news sites, and virtual private networks.
• Uzbekistan experienced a score of decline of 2 points, as the government shut down the internet in the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan and attacked protesters rallying against changes to constitutional amendments that would have prevented the region from seceding.
• In September 2022, users in Azerbaijan and Armenia reported issues accessing TikTok as the Azerbaijani military launched attacks along the Armenian border. During the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh, users in Armenia also had issues accessing TikTok, while the Azerbaijani government blocked a range of social media platforms.  
• Roskomnadzor, the Russian government media regulator, issued content-removal orders to news outlets based in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and in some cases, blocked outlets that refused to comply.
• In all nine Eurasian countries covered by this report, authorities arrested or imprisoned people in retaliation for their online activities.
• Five countries in the region rank Not Free (Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Uzbekistan), two rank Partly Free (Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine), and two rank Free (Armenia and Georgia).
• 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 Eurasia region, 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, 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.