However, residents of several countries have experienced attacks on bloggers, politically motivated surveillance, government manipulation of Web content and regulations focused on online speech, said Freedom House, which issued Monday.

Twenty of the 47 countries have less Internet freedom now than they did in January 2011, with Bahrain, Pakistan, and Ethiopia seeing the greatest declines, .

"We are seeing an increasing number of governments trying to limit free speech online," Sanja Kelly, project director of the study, said during a forum in Washington, D.C.

A number of governments in the Middle East have restricted Internet freedom since the Arab Spring movement that began in late 2010, she said. "They saw what kind of consequences can happen when people organize with social media," Kelly said.

In 14 countries, the governments are hiring people to comment online and drown out unpopular posts. This is one of the more "worrying trends" the study found, Kelly said.