In crisis

0-19

Highly restricted

20-39

Restricted

40-59

Less restricted

60-79

Open

80-100

Countries per expression category

People per expression category

244m

261m

460m

Over the last few years, people in the Americas have experienced major losses in their freedom of expression.

The Regional Expression Score has fallen 8 points in the last decade, but the Human Score has seen a 13-point drop over the same period, signalling the serious impact of restrictions being imposed on large populations.

The Americas also have clear sub-regional tendencies: Countries in North America and the Southern Cone are Open, while Brazil and countries in Central America and the Caribbean tend to have more restricted expression environments.

Additionally, when we exclude the large populations of the US and Canada to focus only on Latin America and the Caribbean, scores – particularly the Human Score – drop significantly: from 68 in the Americas to 58 in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Share this chart

In the Americas, losses in freedom are far larger than gains.

Over the last decade, if we look at the sum of score declines in the region, we see a combined loss in expression of 210 points, set against a combined gain of only 42 points regionwide.

The vast majority of score changes in this region over the last decade have been declines in expression. In the last year, however, there was a small positive shift overall: a combined 25-point increase in expression, outweighing a combined decrease of only 14 points.

Change has also been less dramatic in the Americas than in other regions: The biggest drop was 40 points and the biggest advance was 17 points.

Share this chart