Two-thirds of the planet currently lives under intense government internet censorship according to a report from Freedom House. That means that more than 2 billion people have limited internet access.
And the worst part is, the number of restricted users keeps going up as more and more countries are tightening their hold on how the internet is used. Each country is using excuses like terrorism and pornography to limit debate, ideas, and creative discussion.
In their research, Freedom House has discovered more than 67% of people live in countries where criticism of the state is illegal, and 27% of users around the world live in countries where people who speak out on the internet have been arrested.
“Internet freedom has declined for the sixth consecutive year, with more governments than ever before targeting social media and communication apps as a means of halting the rapid dissemination of information, particularly during anti-government protests,” wrote Freedom House in their report.
Countries that have the largest amount of censorship include countries like China, Russia, Cuba, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Vietnam, Thailand, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Bahrain, Iran, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and the United Arab Emirates.
The free countries that are notable are the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Argentina, Germany, France, Italy, Hungary, Estonia, Kenya, South Africa, Georgia, Armenia, Japan, and the Philippines.
Some websites that are banned–as we’ve noted before in our articles include services like WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and even Wikipedia.
While the decline of uncensored internet progresses, it’s still not all doom and gloom since VPNs like TorGuard are paving the way with advanced internet security and censorship circumvention techniques. We use Stealth VPN that obfuscates VPN traffic in countries like China and UAE where it is common place for ISP’s to block normal VPN connections. This enables our anonymous VPN to encrypt your internet traffic and changes your virtual location to completely bypass all forms of internet censorship.
