For the past decade, China has consistently ranked last in the world for internet freedom due to its all-pervading online surveillance and content control system dubbed the “Great Firewall.”
But a new report out Wednesday shows that internet freedoms in China’s neighbor Myanmar are now just as lacking.
The report from Freedom House, a US government-funded NGO, found that global internet freedom has declined for the 14th consecutive year. China and Myanmar ranked joint last for 2024, with a score of nine out of 100.
Since seizing power in a 2021 coup, Myanmar’s military junta has violently cracked down on dissent, imposing restrictions on online access and speech including widespread internet shutdowns, and built “a mass censorship and surveillance regime,” said the authors of “Freedom on the Net 2024: The Struggle for Trust Online.”