>This is either judgement so poor that it completely disqualifies them as judges of how free the world is

I agree they do seem to be going soft based on these metrics [1]ut they did seem to knock down the UK recently and it does document the UK's recent terribleness. The country by country rankings may not be rigorous.

>Freedom House institutionally likes British online content restrictions and wants to enact similar ones in the US, which also completely disqualifies them as judges of how free the world is.

As much as I love a good conspiracy, I don't think they like the UK content restrictions. It would be rather strange for a policy group to write articles[2] against content restrictions while secretly advocating for content restrictions.

[1] https://freedomhouse.org/country/united-kingdom/freedom-net/...

[2] https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-report/2025/tunnel-v...