Internet freedom in Armenia declined significantly as a result of restrictions on the free flow of information the government adopted during the armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, The Freedom House said in its latest report "Freedom on the Net 2021."
The survey gives countries a score out of 100 for the level of internet freedom enjoyed by citizens, including the extent to which they face restrictions on the content they can access.Other factors include whether pro-government trolls seek to manipulate online debates.
According to the US-based think tank, the implementation of martial law in late September 2020 placed broad restrictions on the media’s ability to report on the fighting, including by banning speech deemed to endanger national security, permitting authorities to demand content removal, and mandating fines for noncompliance. "A number of Turkish and Azerbaijani websites with .az and .tr domains were inaccessible for several weeks. Users also reported problems accessing TikTok. Prominent news sites also faced technical attacks, including distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, leaving many of them temporarily inaccessible during the conflict. In a positive move, a measure that had required telecommunic...
