Internet Freedom Declining Amid Government Snooping, Report Says

The internet is less free than it was a decade ago, and it’s getting worse as some governments expand efforts to use social media to manipulate elections and monitor citizens, according to Freedom House, a Washington-based pro-democracy group.

While governments have monitored speech on social media for a long time, advances in artificial intelligence “have opened up new possibilities for automated mass surveillance,” said Adrian Shahbaz, Freedom House’s research director for technology and democracy. “Advances in AI are driving a booming, unregulated market for social media surveillance.”

The report, which was released Nov. 5, included 65 countries, or ...