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70% Positive

Analyzed from 695 words in the discussion.

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#freedom#house#online#articles#saudi#free#world#content#restrictions#rights

Discussion (9 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

Georgelemental•about 3 hours ago
Freedom House receives most of its funding from the US government.
Cider9986•about 2 hours ago
Like the Tor Project, Signal, Tails, Qubes, Wireguard, etc. The US government is not a monolith. Funded by the FBI as a Honeypot phone company is quite different to funded by the Open Technology Fund. I don't see a problem with the Freedom House, they seem critical of the US's problems and are documenting authoritarianism.

On the other hand, I looked at some of their rankings of specific countries and I noticed they put the UK as higher than USA for freedom on the net and in general. That ranking seems odd to me.

JuniperMesos•about 1 hour ago
> On the other hand, I looked at some of their rankings of specific countries and I noticed they put the UK as higher than USA for freedom on the net and in general. That ranking seems odd to me.

This is either judgement so poor that it completely disqualifies them as judges of how free the world is; or Freedom House institutionally likes British online content restrictions and wants to enact similar ones in the US, which also completely disqualifies them as judges of how free the world is.

Cider9986•17 minutes ago
>This is either judgement so poor that it completely disqualifies them as judges of how free the world is

I agree they do seem to be going soft based on these metrics [1]ut they did seem to knock down the UK recently and it does document the UK's recent terribleness. The country by country rankings may not be rigorous.

>Freedom House institutionally likes British online content restrictions and wants to enact similar ones in the US, which also completely disqualifies them as judges of how free the world is.

As much as I love a good conspiracy, I don't think they like the UK content restrictions. It would be rather strange for a policy group to write articles[2] against content restrictions while secretly advocating for content restrictions.

[1] https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-kingdom/freedom-net/...

[2] https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-report/2025/tunnel-v...

JuniperMesos•about 1 hour ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_House

> Freedom House is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. It is best known for political advocacy surrounding issues of democracy, political freedom, and human rights.[3] Freedom House was founded in October 1941, with Wendell Willkie and Eleanor Roosevelt serving as its first honorary chairpersons. Most of the organization's funding comes from the U.S. State Department[4] and other government grants. It also receives funds from various semi-public and private foundations, as well as individual contributions.

I have no reason to trust a random Washington D.C. NGO that gets much of its funding from the US State Department. I do not think that their methodology for judging whether the world is becoming more or less free aligns with freedoms that I care about.

tt24•about 2 hours ago
What’s the implication here?
carefree-bob•about 1 hour ago
The implication for me is that they are aligned with the US system. That is why, for example, when Orban challenges EU sanctions against Russia, there are ponderous articles published about "authoritarianism" in Hungary, but when, say, Romania cancels an entire Presidential election to prevent a pro-Russian candidate from winning, then there are no such ponderous articles.

You have to be aware that Western funded NGOs are important geostrategic players in overthrowing rival regimes and installing pro-US regimes. I am not seeing many articles about human rights in Saudi Arabia, for example, as that is an American ally. They can even dismember a WAPO journalist and the NGOs wont wring their hands.

So what the article means by "Global Freedom" (I actually cringe at the term) is really "pro-Western regime". That is why Putin and Xi are on the cover graphic of the article. In other words, this is just an expression of US soft power. Once you learn to see this stuff, you see it everywhere.

Cider9986•2 minutes ago
> I am not seeing many articles about human rights in Saudi Arabia, for example, as that is an American ally. They can even dismember a WAPO journalist and the NGOs wont wring their hands.

They don't have articles about every rights violation that happens.

[1] >Internet users continued to receive lengthy prison sentences in reprisal for their social media activity.2 A British national was sentenced to 10 years in prison for a deleted post in August 2024, and in October it was reported that Mohammed al-Ghamdi, a cartoonist for the Qatar-based newspaper Lusail, had been tried in secret and sentenced to 23 years in prison for cartoons that were deemed insulting to Saudi authorities (C3).3

>In June 2025, after the coverage period, online journalist Turki al-Jasser was executed after being convicted of terrorism and treason due to online publications in which he discussed politically sensitive issues such as Palestine and women’s rights (C3).4

>Jailed online journalists and activists faced torture and mistreatment while in prison.5 Prior to his release in February 2025, Assad al-Ghamdi, who was jailed for social media posts in 2022, was subjected to various forms of psychological and physical torture, causing injuries that in some cases required surgical treatment (C7).6

>An online IGF panel that was hosted in Saudi Arabia in December 2024 was hacked by unidentified attackers immediately after participants mentioned the 2018 state-sponsored killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi (C8).7

Doesn't seem particularly biased for the Saudis.

[1] https://freedomhouse.org/country/saudi-arabia/freedom-net/20...

triage8004•about 1 hour ago
Wealth gap inequality coincidentally rose for 20th consecutive years