Freedom Is Not Free License: Freedom House’s Flawed Measurement of “Internet Freedom”

Every year, the advocacy group Freedom House releases a survey and analysis of Internet and digital media freedom around the world. Called Freedom on the Net, the report attempts to assess Internet freedom using a 21-question methodology, assessing nations’ obstacles to Internet access, limits on online content, and restrictions on Internet users. Freedom House’s methodology concedes that governments can legitimately restrict access to some information and some forms of freedom expression. However, the report channels John Perry Barlow’s radical libertarian ideology, which holds that the Internet generally should be off-limits for any and all government oversight. For example, the report’s methodology penalizes not just authoritarians like China for widely agreed-upon violations of Internet freedom but also Western democracies, like the United States, for taking steps within the rule of law that are good for society. The report also espouses Internet progressives’ vision of Internet freedom. For example, it states that Internet freedom in the United States has declined because of consolidation in the telecommunications sector, even though there is no evidence for this ideological claim.