The Internet is getting less and less free

Surveillance, attacks on digital speech, outright censorship and imprisonment are making the Internet less and less free, an annual Freedom House study has concluded. The organization's latest Internet freedom report marks the fifth year in a row that digital civil liberties around the world have been curtailed. Of the 65 countries Freedom House looked at, 29 percent are considered "not free," while even fewer -- 27 percent -- are said to have a "free" Internet. In other words, there are now more countries with an un-free Internet than there are countries with a free Internet. In the United States and Europe, political battles over encrypted Internet traffic cast a shadow over the free and open Web, according to Freedom House.

Tech companies have accused law enforcement of trying to undermine user privacy and security by demanding that they install "back doors" into their software; authorities argue that the concessions are necessary to fight crime and terrorism. Freedom House calculates its index as a composite of several factors, such as the amount of access to Internet a country enjoys, the extent to which authorities restrict content on the Web, and whether the government punishes Internet users.