Skip to content
Nations Inquiry — home

Dataset · V-Dem Institute

Government Social Media Censorship

26 years, 2000–2025 · 176 countries

V-Dem's measure of social media censorship asks how far a government deletes or filters political posts on social media in practice, from not at all to blocking the platforms outright. It is an expert-coded estimate on an open-ended scale centred near zero, and a higher figure means less censorship.

This site holds every year from 2000 to 2025, read from V-Dem Institute’s own data and stored exactly as published.

Share

Government Social Media Censorship · the file

Newest
Government Social Media Censorship, 2025
Held
26 years · 4,565 rows
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

0126 years

Every year

Every year comes from V-Dem Institute’s 2026 release, recalculated on one method. Each opens the full table for that year; each downloads as a CSV.

2000bar height: countries covered, up to 1762025
Every year of Government Social Media Censorship held on this site, newest first, with its download files.
YearCountriesChangeReadDownload
Government Social Media Censorship, 2025Newest176±0September 29, 2026CSV
Government Social Media Censorship, 2024176±0September 29, 2026CSV
Government Social Media Censorship, 2023176±0September 29, 2026CSV
Government Social Media Censorship, 2022176±0September 29, 2026CSV
Government Social Media Censorship, 2021176±0September 29, 2026CSV
Government Social Media Censorship, 2020176±0September 29, 2026CSV
Government Social Media Censorship, 2019176±0September 29, 2026CSV
Government Social Media Censorship, 2018176±0September 29, 2026CSV
Government Social Media Censorship, 2017176±0September 29, 2026CSV
Government Social Media Censorship, 2016176±0September 29, 2026CSV
Government Social Media Censorship, 2015176±0September 29, 2026CSV
Government Social Media Censorship, 2014176±0September 29, 2026CSV
Show all 26 years

Every year in one file, one row per country per year: social-media-censorship-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv

023 columns

What’s in the file

Every column, what it holds, how it is stored and what its values look like — what a reader needs before opening the file.

Every column in the newest file of Government Social Media Censorship: what it holds, how it is stored, and its range.
ColumnWhat it holdsStored asRange, 2025DistinctEmptySpread
CountrycountryNameThe country’s name, as this file spells it.Text—1760
ISO Codecountry_codeIdentifierThe ISO 3166-1 alpha-3 code, added by this site. Every table here joins on it.Text · 3 letters—1760
Freedom from government social media censorship (latent scale)social_media_censorshipHeadlineThe headline figure: Original latent estimate (≈ −4.5 to +2.4); higher = less censorship.Number · up to 3 decimals-3.721North Korea2.295Portugalmiddle 0.5051740

Profiled from the newest file. Range: the lowest and highest value, with the country holding it when only one does. Spread: countries in ten equal steps from lowest to highest. A higher value is the better result.

03176 countries across every year

Who is covered

How many countries each year holds, continent by continent, who joined and who left, and which places this site covers that the dataset never has.

All regions
Countries in each year of Government Social Media Censorship, by continent.
201420152016201720182019202020212022202320242025
Africa555555555555555555555555
Americas272727272727272727272727
Asia484848484848484848484848
Europe404040404040404040404040
Oceania666666666666
All176176176176176176176176176176176176

The newest 12 of 26 years.

Who joined and who left

04Provenance

Where it comes from

The path from the publisher to this page, and what was checked and changed on the way.

The site’s method
  1. 1 · Publisher

    V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg

  2. 2 · Their file

    Government Social Media Censorship 2025

  3. 3 · Read by this site

    September 29, 2026

    Imported by a script that parses each figure and writes it down unrounded.
  4. 4 · Stored as

    26 files, one per year

    Each downloads as a CSV, or every year together as social-media-censorship-all-editions-nations-inquiry.csv
  5. 5 · Used on

    Its statistic page, and every profile it measures

Precision

The headline is stored to 3 decimals, as published.

Rounded by this site

Never. Tables on screen may show fewer decimals; the files never do.

Changed by this site

Reshaped into one row per country: regional and income-group totals are left out, only the columns listed are kept, each row gets its ISO 3166 code, and some country names are brought to one spelling. No value is recalculated, rescaled or rounded.

From the V-Dem Institute's Country-Year Full+Others dataset (v16), University of Gothenburg — this indicator is a Digital Society Project question not in the smaller Core file — published under CC BY-SA 4.0. The series starts in 2000, when V-Dem's questions on digital society begin. Stored as the measurement model's original estimate, not V-Dem's 0–4 rescaling.

05Reuse

Licence and credit

What the publisher’s licence lets you do, what it asks of you, and a credit line and citation ready to copy.

Every publisher’s terms

Licence · checked September 29, 2026

CC BY-SA 4.0

  • Share and redistribute it
  • Adapt it and build on it
  • Use it commercially
  • Credit the publisher
  • Say what you changed
  • Publish anything adapted from it under the same licence

Share, adapt and use commercially with credit — and anything you publish that adapts it must carry the same licence.

A credit line

Source: V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Government Social Media Censorship, via Nations Inquiry.

Cite this dataset

V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg. Government Social Media Censorship, 2000–2025 [data set]. As held by Nations Inquiry, https://nationsinquiry.com/datasets/social-media-censorship

The publisher’s own citation: Coppedge, M. et al. V-Dem Country-Year Dataset v16. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project, University of Gothenburg.

Plain-language summary, not legal advice. The licence text is what binds.

06Where it is used

Around the site

Where these numbers appear on this site, and the datasets nearest to it.

07Questions

Government Social Media Censorship: questions and answers

What is the Government Social Media Censorship?

V-Dem's measure of social media censorship asks how far a government deletes or filters political posts on social media in practice, from not at all to blocking the platforms outright. It is an expert-coded estimate on an open-ended scale centred near zero, and a higher figure means less censorship.

Which years of the Government Social Media Censorship can I download?

All 26, from 2000 to 2025, each as a CSV file, or every year together in one CSV.

Does V-Dem Institute rank countries on it?

No. V-Dem Institute publishes values only. The positions shown on this site are derived by ordering the published values, and are labelled as ours.

Can I use it commercially?

Yes, under CC BY-SA 4.0, with credit to V-Dem Institute. The licence text is linked on this page.

Feedback

Feedback

How are we doing?

Two answers are required — a rating and your email. The rest is up to you.