The Global Expression Report (GxR) is an annual look at the right to free expression and information across the world. The GxR metric tracks freedom of expression across 161 countries via 25 indicators to create a score between 0 and 100 for every country. That score places it in an expression category.

Around the globe, 80% of us have less freedom of expression than we had a decade ago. That’s more than 6 billion people in more than 80 countries.

The Global Expression Score (the mean average of country scores) has seen a 6-point decline since 2012, but the Human Score (weighted by population) – which shows the real cost of that loss – has dropped 13 points in just 10 years.

The divergence between these scores is relatively new: Between 2000 and 2012, the Human Score held steady – more or less in line with the Global Expression Score – but declines began to accelerate after 2012.

Far more people are experiencing increases in repression than decreases. This is true over all our key periods: 1, 5, and 10 years. 
  
• In the last year, 363 million people across 12 countries experienced declines in their freedom of expression, while 165 million people across 7 countries saw advances.
• In the last 5 years, 4.7 billion across 51 countries experienced declines in their freedom of expression, while only 673 million people in 25 countries saw advances.
• In the last 10 years, 6.3 billion people across 81 countries experienced declines in their freedom of expression, while 452 million people in 21 countries saw advances.

There are more countries in which freedoms are in decline than countries seeing rises in expression. What’s more, the countries in decline contain many more people than countries in advance, which tend to have much smaller populations. 95% of countries that advanced in the last decade had populations of under 50 million people, while only 74% of countries that declined over the same period had populations of that size.