Armenia has moved from the list of countries with free internet to “the partly free list” and scored 32 points out of 100, as per the Freedom House report entitled Freedom on the Net 2017 .

Internet freedom declined in Armenia after users experienced temporary restrictions on Facebook, while online manipulation increased in the lead-up to parliamentary elections, the report says

According to the report, the lead-up to the parliamentary election saw unprecedented levels of manipulation online, with coordinated bots spreading misinformation and attempting to stifle independent reporting on Twitter.”

Around the same time, civil society figures received Google notifications that state-backed hackers were attempting to hack their accounts.

Though the government does not usually engage in blocking or filtering, Facebook was briefly restricted in July 2016 when armed opposition figures tookover a police station in Yerevan, holding several police officers hostage. Mobilizing on social networks, thousands of citizens took to the streets to demonstrate against the government at the same time. Online journalists covering the events were violently dispersed by law enforcement.

Self-censorship on some issues improved during the coverage period. As tensions between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh region simmered down following the April 2016 flare up in hostilities, social media users and online journalists faced less pressure to restrict their reporting on the conflict.

Overall, the internet remained relatively free, with gradual improvements in infrastructure and accessibility connecting more of the population. Activists regularly use social media as a tool to promote their causes, and opposition and independent media flourish online,” the report says.

Among the key