According to him, the media has the greatest freedom in Scandinavian countries such as Norway, Denmark and Sweden, while countries with authoritarian regimes are at the back of the list – China, Burma, Turkmenistan, Iran, Eritrea and North Korea.
According to Reporters Without Borders, the new rankings show that the information chaos caused by the unregulated flow of news in the online space, which helps increase misinformation and propaganda, is having a catastrophic impact on the media.
At the international level, democracy undermines the asymmetry between open societies and autocratic regimes that have complete control over media and online platforms and engage in disinformation attacks, the report said.
In this context, the RSF also recalls the conflict in Ukraine, which was preceded by increased Russian propaganda. Russia is ranked 155th, last year it rose five places. Belarus finished 153rd this year, Ukraine 106th.
Among the countries that experienced the biggest declines, for example, Hong Kong, which last year was in the 80th place, this year is at 148th. Burma lost nearly 40 places after a military coup in 2021, and Afghanistan fell from 122 to 156, where the Islamist movement the Taliban returned to power last year.
Of the European Union countries, Greece, which ranks 108 this year after last year was ranked 70 this year, and Austria – 31, 17 last year, unsuccessful in media freedom, Bulgaria is ranked 91, Hungary 85 and Poland 66 Slovakia improved eight places to 27th.
The journalists’ organization points out that this year’s ranking is based on data collected up to the end of January and therefore does not take into account current events, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He also stated that this year’s evaluation was carried out based on amended criteria, so results from 2021 and 2022 only need to be compared very carefully.
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