Freedom of expression is under threat across the world

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ARTICLE 19 takes no position on issues of sovereignty or territorial disputes. Borders on this map are based on UN Geospatial data.

More than 70% of us have less freedom of expression today than we had a decade ago.

• In the last year, 11 countries experienced declines in freedom of expression. The largest declines took place in the USA (16 points), moving the country down from Open to Less Restricted category; and Georgia (16 points), continuing the country’s downwards trajectory.

• 5.8 billion people across 80 countries have experienced a decline in their freedom of expression over the last 10 years.

• Over the last decade, the number of countries ranked as Open fell steeply from 45 to only 35, while the number In Crisis swelled from 33 to 42.

• Only 1 in 10 of us – 823 million people across 22 nations – have experienced improvements in freedom of expression over the decade.

Crisis

0-19

Highly Restricted

Highly restricted

20-39

Restricted

40-59

Less restricted

60-79

Open

80-100

Countries per expression category

People per expression category

2,771m

2,405m

920m

1,145m

912m

The Global Expression Score has dropped 6 points in the last decade – when adjusted for population, it has dropped 8 points.

Freedom in numbers

countries’ expression scores have declined over the last decade

11%

of the global population live in countries ranked as ‘Open’

5.8bn

people have suffered a decline in freedom of expression in the last decade

Far more people are living amid deepening repression than are experiencing advances in their freedoms.

Significant change

The threshold for a significant (meaningful) change depends on the period measured:

Over the 1 year period a significant (meaningful) change is +/-5 points.
For a 5 year period it is +/-10 points.
For a 10 year period it is +/-20 points.

Last year (2024-2025)

In the last year alone, scores have declined in 11 countries, while only 7 countries experienced an improvement.

Over the year, 979 million people experienced a decline in their freedom of expression compared with 312 million who experienced improvements - a ratio of more than three to one.

Of the 11 countries that experienced declines, 10 were significant (declines of at least 5 points).

The largest declines took place in the USA (16 points), moving it down from the Open category to Less Restricted; and Georgia (16 points) – the second consecutive year of a significant decline in the country. Those were followed by Niger (10 points), moving it from Less Restricted to Restricted.

The largest advance took place in South Korea (16 points), moving it up into the Open category; followed by Syria (14 points), which remained in the In Crisis category; and Bangladesh (14 points), moving from Highly Restricted to Restricted. Sri Lanka (7 points) and Guatemala (6 points) both sustained their upward trajectory from the previous year.

Last five years (2020-2025)

In the last 5 years, nearly 3.9 billion people across 60 countries experienced a deterioration of their freedom of expression. At the same time, only 735 million people across 17 countries experienced an improvement.

The sharpest declines were recorded in Burkina Faso (51 points), Afghanistan (38 points), Georgia (38 points), Myanmar (36 points), and El Salvador (29 points).

The largest advances in expression over the 5 years took place in Sri Lanka (30 points), Bangladesh (28 points), Brazil (27 points), Zambia (26 points), and Poland (20 points).

Last decade (2015–2025)

Over the last decade, 5.8 billion people across 80 countries experienced a deterioration of their freedom of expression, while only 823 million people across 22 countries experienced an improvement.

Declines in expression scores were more widespread than improvements. They also affected countries with much larger populations, whereas advances mostly occurred in nations with smaller populations.

Burkina Faso experienced the largest decline in freedom of expression over the last 10 years (55 points), followed by El Salvador (52 points), Hong Kong (China) (49points), and Georgia (43 points).

Long-term advancements were more isolated. The Gambia experienced by far the largest improvement over the decade (61 points), with Bangladesh experiencing the second-largest advance (24 points).