Expression Agenda
Report 2017/2018

The XPA metric looks at indicators which relate to the ability of individuals and civil society organisations to associate and be active.

Across the world, governments are implementing laws and policies which shrink civic space. 2017 saw many government’s criminalising protest through excessive restrictions. In Spain, Bangladesh and Kenya among others, authorities used excessive force against protesters.

Increasingly, constraints on civic space offline mimic and intersect with online restrictions, such as internet shutdowns in Cameroon and Iran in response to demonstrations, aiming to limit communication and organisation by protestors.

Top advancer and decliner countries for civil space in 2017

The XPA metric measures online censorship and freedom of online discussion.

2017 saw an unprecedented number of attacks on bloggers and online communicators across the world. Individuals are increasingly penalised with prison sentences for social media posts. An increasing number of internet shutdowns, bandwidth throttling and website filtering have been used by authorities to silence dissent, particularly in areas populated by minority groups.

Overly broad counterterrorism legislative is being used in many countries to regulate social media platforms, putting social media companies under increasing pressure to censor content online and adopt filtering technology to moderate content.

The top advancer and decliner countries for digital in

Free, diverse and pluralistic media depends on governments refraining from restrictions and creating an enabling legal and regulatory environment. The XPA metric measures factors such as government censorship and self-censorship.

The XPA data shows that media self-censorship is the second biggest driver in the freedom of expression decline between 2014 and 2017. Censorship mechanisms of governments such as Turkey and Poland are determined to seize control of media and restrict critical voices. In authoritarian governments and transitioning democracies, media actors face limits to their independence and editorial freedom. Online, people are relying more on a small number of social media platforms, putting online content regulation in the hands of a few private companies, with opaque procedures.

The top advancer and decliner countries in the data for media in 2017 are:

Journalists, communicators and human rights defenders around the world faced major risks during 2017. Governments and other powerful actors, seeking to escape scrutiny and stifle dissent, responded to critical reporting with attempts to silence the reporters. Threats, surveillance, attacks, arrests, detention and killings were the price of reporting the truth. Attacks often occur with impunity, driving a cycle of intimidation and self-censorship.

Countries such as Mexico, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, India, the Philippines and Yemen recorded the highest numbers of journalists murdered. In Cambodia, Burundi, Brazil and Turkey, attacks against journalists combined with a worsening environment for freedom of expression caused their ranking in the XPA metric to drop.

The top advancer and decliner countries in the data for protection in 2017 are:

The XPA looks at issues including whether laws are transparent and enforced in a predictable manner, whether there are effective oversight bodies, rigorous and impartial public administration and access to justice.

The XPA data shows that every country which declined in freedom of expression between 2014 and 2017 also declined in transparency. However, globally progress on the right to information was strong, with four new transparency laws in 2017. Lebanon, Malawi, and the Bahamas passed freedom of information legislation in 2017, and Pakistan replaced a regulation with a law.

More countries are adopting protections for whistleblowers, data protection laws, beneficial ownership laws, open data regulations, and other means of facilitating access to information.

Negative trends emerging include attacks and threats to information requesters, especially in India.

The top advancer and decliner countries in the data for transparency in 2017 are: