On photo - The level of Internet freedom in Moldova is recognized as quite high // Photo: theverge.com
The Cloudwards study shows how freely users around the world can use the Internet. The researchers analyzed four categories, such as content for civic, political expression, Torrent resources and VPN services.
There are 11 countries in the lead
The list of countries with the highest level of Internet freedom (92 points) was made by Belgium, Costa Rica, Denmark, East Timor, Finland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Slovakia, Suriname and Denmark. According to the authors of the study, users in these countries do not face restrictions in access to social networks, political and civic expression and VPN services. Only access to Torrent resources is restricted.
Internet in Moldova is freer than in the USA and France
Moldova got into the next group of countries with 84 points. The level of Internet freedom in our country is assessed at the same level as in 26 other countries, among which Switzerland, Austria, Greece, Canada, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro and Chile stand out.
Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Italy and Bulgaria scored 72 points each. Meanwhile, the US, Germany, France, Japan, Japan and Romania scored 64 points – the same number as Botswana, Guinea-Bissau and CAR. The UK has only 52 points, the same as Brazil, Colombia or Zambia.
Ukraine scored 44 points and fell into the same group as Israel, Cambodia, El Salvador and Somalia. South Korea scored 32 points, as did Bahrain with Malaysia and Singapore.
Afghanistan, Indonesia, Qatar, Uzbekistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam (24 points each), Belarus (20 points), Iraq, and Turkmenistan (16 points each) were recognized as countries with extremely low levels of Internet freedom.
At the “bottom” of the rating
The last five places in the ranking were occupied by China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia (four points each), and North Korea (0 points). All of these countries were not recognized as “completely free” in any of the categories studied. The study confirmed the blockades or temporary restrictions imposed in these countries on major international social networks and platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube.
Cloudwards refers to the Internet Freedom Survey as a “domestic” survey, not considering it an international official index.
