Freedom of expression score
What you should know about this indicator
- Score of 1: Freedom of expression is denied. Independent media do not exist or are prohibited.
- Score of 4: Freedom of expression is often subject to interference or government restrictions. Distortion and manipulation shape matters of public debate.
- Score of 7: Freedom of expression is occasionally subject to interference or government restrictions, but there are generally no incidents of blatant intrusions like outright state censorship or media shutdowns.
- Score of 10: Freedom of expression is guaranteed against interference or government restrictions. Individuals, groups and the press can fully exercise these rights.
- The remaining scores are intermediate categories.
Sources and processing
This data is based on the following sources
How we process data at Our World in Data
All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.
At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.
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- All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
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Citations
How to cite this page
To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:
“Data Page: Freedom of expression score”, part of the following publication: Bastian Herre, Lucas Rodés-Guirao and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina (2013) - “Democracy”. Data adapted from Bertelsmann Transformation Index. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/freedom-of-expression-score-bti [online resource]
How to cite this data
In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:
Bertelsmann Transformation Index (2024) – processed by Our World in Data
Full citation
Bertelsmann Transformation Index (2024) – processed by Our World in Data. “Freedom of expression score” [dataset]. Bertelsmann Transformation Index, “Bertelsmann Transformation Index, Scores” [original data]. Retrieved December 13, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/freedom-of-expression-score-bti