THE latest annual Internet Health Report by Mozilla, the organisation behind the Firefox web browser, says the web is in a bad way when it comes to online equality and privacy.
Around half of the world’s population now has internet access, but there is a stark geographical divide. Nearly 80 per cent of people in Europe are online, while in Africa the figure is just 20 per cent.
Men outnumber women online in every region except the Americas. In Africa, there are three women online for every four men, a gap that has widened since 2013.
Advertisement
Two-thirds of internet users live in countries that regularly censor the internet. WhatsApp, the most commonly used encrypted chat app, was blocked or throttled in 12 out of 65 countries examined by the report.
Last year also saw a concentration of big tech power. Facebook added over a billion users across its different platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram, while over 90 per cent of all web searches are done on Google.
This article appeared in print under the headline “Online equality and privacy in trouble”
