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Armenia has been recognized as the Eurasian leader in the annual Freedom on the Net 2019 report by Freedom House independent human rights watchdog. 

Armenia ranks 8th on the report, surpassing not only its neighbors, but also Japan and South Korea, the Voice of America’s Armenian service reported.

Freedom on the Net is a comprehensive study of internet freedom in 65 countries around the globe, covering 87 percent of the world’s internet users. It tracks improvements and declines in internet freedom conditions each year.

The report’s methodology includes three categories: obstacles to internet access, limits on content and violations of user rights, which tackles surveillance, privacy, and repercussions for online speech and activities, such as imprisonment, extralegal harassment, or cyberattacks.

This year’s report is entitled “The Crisis of Social Media” since, according to its authors, “repressive regimes, elected incumbents with authoritarian ambitions, and unscrupulous partisan operatives have exploited the unregulated spaces of social media platforms, converting them into instruments for political distortion and societal control.”

“While social media have at times served as a level playing field for civic discussion, they are now tilting dangerously toward illiberalism, exposing citizens to an unprecedented crackdown on their fundamental freedoms. Moreover, a startling variety of governments are deploying advanced tools to identify and monitor users on an immense scale. As a result of these trends, global internet freedom declined for the ninth consecutive year in 2019,” the report read.

Of the 65 countries assessed over the past year, in a record 47 countries, law enforcement arrested people for posting political, social, or religious speech online; 40 countries featured advanced social media surveillance programs; and in 38 countries, political leaders employed individuals to shape online opinions, which was also a record high.

Some 33 countries have been on an overall decline since June 2018, compared with 16 that registered net improvements. The biggest score declines took place in Sudan and Kazakhstan followed by Brazil, Bangladesh, and Zimbabwe.

Iceland became the world’s best protector of internet freedom, having registered no civil or criminal cases against users for online expression during the coverage period.

As costs for surveillance technology declines, more and more government bodies are starting to employ that technology “with little oversight or accountability,” according to the report.

Digital surveillance, which benefits from processes like machine learning, vastly increases the scope and capabilities of government surveillance — and the risks of abuse. The 40 countries in the study that have instituted advanced social media surveillance programs are home to 89 percent of internet users, or nearly 3 billion people.

Armenia, along with Argentina, Canada, Estonia and Iceland, is on the list of 5 unique countries which have taken no steps to restrict internet platforms. The reports of the previous years, expect the 2017 report, also ranked Armenia as a free country, however Armenia placed 8th on the Freedom on the Net report for the first time.