Freedom House Releases 'Internet Freedom Index'
South Korea Scores 65 in 2025, Drops to 22nd Place
Yoon's Martial Law, Fair Trade Commission's Penalty on Mobile Carriers Highlighted
It has been revealed that global internet freedom has declined for the 15th consecutive year. According to Yonhap News, on November 13 (local time), the U.S.-based international human rights organization Freedom House released its report, "Freedom on the Net 2025: The Uncertain Future of the Global Internet," stating that internet freedom in the 72 countries surveyed has generally worsened compared to previous years.
Freedom House assessed each country's level of internet freedom by evaluating various criteria regarding government restrictions, assigning a score out of 100. Based on these scores, countries were classified into three categories: "Free," "Partly Free," and "Not Free." This report is based on data collected from June 2024 to May 2025.
South Korea received a score of 65, ranking 22nd, and was classified as a "Partly Free" country. Freedom House noted, "South Korea has cases of blocking political, social, and religious content, arrest and detention of bloggers and information and communication technology (ICT) users, and physical attacks on bloggers and ICT users." In particular, it pointed out, "Former President Yoon Suk-yeol's brief declaration of martial law placed all media outlets under military control, and efforts to suppress criticism of the government were intensified through defamation lawsuits, regulatory pressure, and criminal investigations."
Additionally, the report mentioned the Fair Trade Commission's imposition of fines on the three major mobile carriers for collusion on sales incentives, the blocking of downloads for the Chinese generative artificial intelligence (AI) platform DeepSeek, and ongoing defamation lawsuits against journalists.
Last year, South Korea scored 66 points, ranking 21st. At the time, Freedom House stated, "President Yoon Suk-yeol and the People Power Party used the narrative of 'fake news' to justify a campaign against independent media ahead of the general election," adding, "Authorities raided and blacklisted independent media outlets that had reported critically on the government." The report also pointed out, "Lawmakers from the People Power Party campaigned to denounce 'SNU FactCheck,' South Korea's main fact-checking platform, as biased."
Iceland ranked as the country with the highest internet freedom, scoring 94 points, followed by Estonia (91 points) and Chile (87 points). Among the countries surveyed, China and Myanmar ranked at the bottom with 9 points each. China has been at the bottom of the survey for ten consecutive years. Georgia experienced the largest year-on-year drop, with a decrease of 4 points, while the United States and Germany each saw their scores fall by 3 points.
In particular, the report found that internet freedom is declining due to increased crackdowns on protests and censorship in authoritarian countries. Annie Boyajian, President of Freedom House, emphasized, "Global internet freedom has reached a critical juncture," and warned, "Unless governments and the private sector make greater efforts to protect internet freedom, the decline will not stop."
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