You Mean We Are NOT Number One?

The inventor of the World Wide Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has said the US and UK must do more to protect internet users’ privacy as the US has fallen to fourth place in a survey ranking countries in terms of their internet freedom.

Despite more and more people around the world having access to the internet, Berners-Lee warned that the growing tide of government-on-government surveillance and censorship is posing a threat to online freedom and the future of democracy. He made his remarks at an event to launch a global index that ranks countries according to their internet freedom in London Friday.

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The league table is compiled of 81 countries, expended from 61 countries surveyed last year. It looks at various measures, including the extent of internet access, how “empowered” people are by its availability and how much censorship is employed by governments.

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He also described attempts by spy agencies to crack encryption as “appalling and foolish.” He has said previously that the checks and balances that the UK and US governments are meant to have over GCHQ and the NSA have failed.

  RT

That’s us. Appalling and foolish.

Sweden was still in No. 1, with Norway coming in second. Russia and China scored poorly, coming in at 41 and 57, respectively.

Well, that’s good. We would hate to be worse than Russia and China.

No developing country has yet achieved the UN target of connecting at least 50 percent of their population to the internet.

That surprises me.