Изображение: Freedom House
Freedom House has published its annual *Freedom on the Net 2026* report, which assesses internet freedom in 38 countries.
Belarus scored 21 out of 100 points, placing it among countries where the internet is not free. Only Cuba (19 points), Russia (16), China, Iran and Myanmar (9 points each) received lower scores. Belarus also scored 21 points in last year’s report.
Countries with the highest scores for internet freedom included Estonia, Costa Rica, Taiwan, Australia, France, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States and Argentina. Ukraine ranked in the middle of the table, among countries with partly free internet.
It is worth noting that this year Freedom House suspended its assessments of 34 countries, reducing the number of countries covered by the ranking by almost half.
The organisation reports that internet freedom continues to decline. This trend has persisted for 16 consecutive years.
According to the report, authoritarian regimes have intensified efforts to isolate their populations from the global internet. Another trend is the introduction of age restrictions for social media users. The use of artificial intelligence and government attempts to regulate it have also emerged as challenges to internet freedom. On the one hand, politicians are promoting measures to combat the use of AI for impersonation, harassment and other abuses. At the same time, however, government officials are abusing certain laws to restrict freedom of expression online.
“Internet freedom should serve as a guidepost in the AI era. The rapid adoption of agentic AI services, which perform tasks independently, is already transforming the internet. Around the world, societies will grapple with how to configure the internet in response. Those efforts should work to preserve open exchange and free expression as fundamental values,” the Freedom House report states.