Denmark, Sweden and Norway have been hailed as the best countries in the world where freedom of expression thrives, a report said following World Press Freedom Day.

Many reports have been generated about the amount of unregulated online content that has spread disinformation and propaganda “amplifying political divisions around the world” and stoking international tensions, he also said.

On this occasion, the secretary general of RSF, Christopher Deloire, declared in a press release that “the creation of media weapons in authoritarian countries suppresses the right to information of their citizens but is also linked to the rise of international tensions, which can lead to the worst of wars,” and urged countries to adopt appropriate legal frameworks to protect democratic online information spaces.

The situation where freedom of expression is controlled by governments is “very bad” in a record 28 countries, according to this year’s ranking of 180 countries and regions based on the degree of freedom enjoyed by journalists.

The lowest ranked countries were North Korea (180th), Eritrea (179th) and Iran (178th), closely followed by Myanmar (176th) and China (175th).

Hong Kong’s position fell dozens of places to 148th place, reflecting Beijing’s efforts to use “its legislative arsenal to confine its population and cut it off from the rest of the world”, RSF said, while Russia sat in 155th and ally Belarus at 153rd were also on its red list of most repressive, while the Nordic countries Norway, Denmark and Sweden topped the chart again, serving as role models of democracy “where freedom of expression flourishes”.