Posts tagged Freedom House
South Korea’s Internet only “partly free,” says Freedom House
Oct 12th
Despite living in one of the most wired societies in the world, South Korean Internet users enjoy a “partly free” Internet due to government censorship of content, according to the results of a global survey on Internet freedom.
Censorship of content, which includes many websites that carry North Korean content, has shot up in recent years.
The government’s own figures show 25,706 items were blocked in the first six months of 2013, compared to 39,296 sites in all of 2012. Five years ago in 2008, just 4,731 sites were blocked.
The censorship led Freedom House to score the country 32 points in its annual More >
DPRK moves up a point, but still worst for press freedom
May 2nd
DVDs being smuggled into the DPRK have gained the country a point in an annual ranking of press freedom. [Updated, see below]
The ranking, by Washington, D.C., -based Freedom House was published on Wednesday and this year gave North Korea a score of 96. That still leaves it at the absolute bottom of the survey, this year tied with Turkmenistan, but its a point higher than last year.
The extra point came, “as a result of increased attempts to circumvent stringent censorship and the use of technologies such as smuggled DVDs to spread news and information,” Freedom House said in the report.
Recent years have seen a More >
North last, South falling in press freedom
May 5th
North Korea remains the country with the least press freedom in the world, according to the 2011 Press Freedom index from Washington, D.C., based Freedom House. The news isn’t a surprise to anyone that follows North Korea closely. There is a complete lack of independent media, official media is highly censored, and the government actively blocks foreign media from penetrating the country.
What’s perhaps more interesting is a drop in the rank of neighboring South Korea.
The survey ranks countries on 23 questions, assigning scores that are combined to provide a total. The total runs from 0 (best) to 100 (worst) and countries More >
