Indians are proud to belong to the world’s biggest
democracy, but do we enjoy extensive freedom online? Not to a great extent, going by the annual
Web Index ranking, where countries are tested against a series of parameters that measure how the World Wide Web empowers people and contributes to
socio-economic development. This year,
Sweden takes the top spot out of the 81 countries in the list while
India has been ranked 56th with an Index score of 32.4, ahead of neighbours China (ranked 57th with a score of 31.1) and Pakistan (77th with 10.4). The bottom two countries are Ethiopia and Yemen.
Incidentally, China has the
largest Internet user base in the world – a little over 300 million. The US comes 2nd with an estimated 207 million users while India has the
third-largest Internet population of around 200 million and counting. As per the I-Cube 2013 report, the number of
Internet users in India is expected to rise 18.53% to reach 243 million by June 2014.
The Web Index is a composite measure that sums up in a single (average) number the extent of ‘freedom’ and ‘utility’ of the Web in various countries. The ranking was started in 2012 by the
World Wide Web Foundation, an organisation set up by the
Web inventor Sir
Tim Berners-Lee in 2009.
The indexing has got bigger this year and 20 more countries have been added, bringing the total number to 81. Several criteria have been taken into account and scores have been given for universal access, education & awareness, access & affordability,
communications infrastructure,
relevant content,
Web use,
content creation, freedom & openness,
freedom of the Web, impact & empowerment,
political impact, social &
environmental impact and
economic impact.
Sweden has bagged the top spot for the second consecutive year (94.4 in universal access, 90.1 in relevant content, 86.1 in freedom & openness and 92.2 in impact & empowerment), followed by
Norway, the UK, the US and
New Zealand.
Denmark,
Finland,
Iceland,
France and the
Republic of Korea occupy the next five slots. It is not surprising that the US has got the lowest score under ‘freedom,’ following the
Snowden debacle. The country has also dropped two places from last year’s list.
Ranked at 30th,
Mexico is the best emerging market country while the
Philippines is the highest-ranked developing nation at the 38th spot. But except for
Morocco (ranked 54th in the Index), none of the developing nations achieved the 50% connectivity target of the UN World Summit on the Information Society. In
Africa, fewer than 20% people are using the Internet.
As for category leaders, Iceland ranks highest in access, the UK tops in relevant content, Norway leads in terms of freedom & openness and the US comes first for impact & empowerment.
How is India faring? If you are wondering why India has not made it to the ‘Top 10’, here is a score breakdown for greater insight. The country has got 28.6 for access, 22.6 for relevant content, 49.5 for freedom & openness and 31.2 for impact & empowerment. While scores in the first two categories are bound to improve with deeper Internet penetration and
scaling up of services across the country, impact & empowerment can only happen when the burgeoning user base can actually leverage the numerous benefits of the Internet.
“This may happen in the near future as the Internet/Web-based industries are gearing up fast, sensing a really huge opportunity here,” observes a US and India-based
venture capital firm.
But what may worry one most is the score under freedom & openness – 49.5 compared to Sweden’s 86.1 and Norway’s ‘perfect’ 100. According to a
Google report published earlier this year, India made an average of 13 requests a day to Google for
access to personal details of
Web users during 2012. This was only second to the US, which made 45 requests a day on an average – the highest for any country. The US made a total of 16,407 requests to Google during 2012, followed by 4,750 from India, 3,239 from France, 3,083 from
Germany, 2,883 from the UK and 2,777 from Brazil.
Interestingly, China has scored 5.3 for freedom & openness while Pakistan’s score for freedom & openness stands at 9.8.
Commenting on the trend, Sir Tim Berners-Lee said, “One of the most encouraging findings of this year’s Web Index is how the Web and
social media are increasingly spurring people to organise, take action and try to expose wrongdoing in every region of the world. But some
governments are threatened by this, and a growing tide of
surveillance and
censorship now threatens the future of democracy. Bold steps are needed now to protect our fundamental
rights to privacy and
freedom of opinion and association online.”
Key findings from Web Index 2013
Targeted censorship of Web content by governments is widespread across the globe. Moderate to extensive blocking or filtering of politically sensitive content was reported in over 30% of Web Index countries during the past year.
Legal limits on government snooping online urgently need review. Around 94% of countries in the Web Index do not meet best practice standards for checks and balances on
government interception of electronic communications.
The Web and social media are leading to real-world change.
In 80% of the countries studied, the Web and social media had played a role in public mobilisation in the past year, and in half of these cases, had been a major catalyst.
Rich countries do not necessarily rank highly in the Web Index.
The Philippines, with a per capita income of $4,410 per year, is more than 10 places ahead of Qatar, the world’s richest country, with an average income over 20 times greater than the Philippines. Saudi Arabia is overtaken by 10 of the sub-Saharan African countries. Switzerland, the world’s third wealthiest nation, is only one place ahead of Estonia. The study shows that once countries surpass a GDP threshold of $12,000 per capita, the link between wealth and Web Index rank weakens significantly.
The rights and priorities of women are poorly served by the Web in the majority of countries researched. Locally relevant information on topics such as reproductive health,
domestic violence and inheritance remain largely absent from the Web in most countries. Only 56% of Web Index countries were assessed as allocating ‘significant’ resources to ICT training programmes targeting women and men equally.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
