A new report reveals that social media is not completely free, but is full of bad faith actors who manipulate elections, and government officials who monitor users.

The Freedom on the Net 2019 report comes from an independent monitoring organization Freedom House.

While ongoing efforts to intervene in elections are a major concern, the breadth of monitoring is equally worrying, the report says. According to the report, 40 of the 65 countries studied by the organization (about 62%) "have developed advanced social media monitoring programs."

In terms of Internet freedom, China has been classified as the least free country. Russia and Egypt have also been classified as "not free." In all, "89% of Internet users, or nearly 3 billion people," fall into some kind of surveillance software, a staggering figure, according to Mashabel Technology.

For example, the report notes that in Iran there is an "army of 42,000 volunteers monitoring the online speech."

The CPC has a similar system of recruits who browse the data and describe "problematic content." Simptian, meanwhile, is proud that its Aegis surveillance system helps it monitor more than 200 million people in China.

Although the United States is listed as "free" of Internet censorship, the report shows that it is hardly innocent.

Officials in some countries go to the United States to practice how to monitor social media.

The report also cites Israeli cybersecurity firm Celebrite, which recently agreed to a new deal with the US Immigration and Customs Administration worth between $ 30-35 million. Celebrate's tools enable users to easily hack phones and get all kinds of data.

Other countries are sending officials to the United States to learn how to monitor social media.

According to the report, "Philippine officials traveled to North Carolina to receive training by US military personnel to develop a new unit to monitor social media."

The Bangladesh Rapid Action Battalion, a government-backed "anti-terrorism" unit that is largely known for gross human rights violations including torture and "extrajudicial killings," also received approval in April 2019 to travel to the states United to learn how to use the "social network monitoring system software by location".

The study also illustrates how these governments benefit greatly from data collected by all such monitoring.

Again, the report makes clear that not only repressive regimes do so. Even “free” countries such as the UK and the US have monitored activists, including the case in which the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement uses “social media in New York City to gather information about Protesting the administration's immigration and arms control policies. "