With all of the social media successes throughout the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, it would be all too easy to overlook the struggles faced by bloggers and netizens throughout the region. And yet, 2011 was an extraordinary difficult year for free expression, from Egypt's shutdown of the Internet to the numerous harassed, arrested, and detained bloggers from the Maghreb to the Gulf.

Iran: No room for free expression

Less than a week into 2012, Reporters Without Borders puts the number of jailed netizens globally at 126. Within the list, Iran stands out, as my colleague Fred Petrossian writes:

In 2011, the Iranian regime was faithful to its reputation as an enemy of internet as it continued to repress bloggers and even threaten their lives. Blogger Sakhi Rigi got a record breaking 20-year jail sentence. Hossein Ronaghi Maleki, who is serving 15 years in prison, struggled for his health and for a period was deprived of contact with his family and lawyer. RSF talked about the plight of seven netizens in Iran in July 2011. These cases are just the tip of the iceberg. While a few bloggers likeShiva Nazar Ahari andHossein Derakhshanwere released on bail, others like Mohammad Reza Pour Shajari may face charges of ‘Waging War Against God' (moharebeh), for which a death sentence can be pronounced. As Omid Reza Mirsayafi's tragic death shows, the more a blogger is isolated and deprived of a network, the more he is in danger.

Egypt, Syria, Bahrain among the region's worst

But while Iran may rank worst in terms of the number of bloggers detained, life for bloggers in much of the rest of the region has been no picnic. In Syria, where the uprising that started last spring shows few signs of abating, several prominent bloggers were arrested in 2011, threatening countless more into silence. Razan Ghazzawi, a former Global Voices contributor, spent fifteen days in prison in December until being released on bail, but still faces trial for “weakening the national sentiment,” among other charges. Hussein Ghrer, released in early December, also faces trial. Meanwhile, Tal Al-Mallohi, the teenaged blogger imprisoned in 2009, is serving a five year sentence.

Egyptian blogger Alaa Abd El Fattah poses with his wife and fellow blogger Manal Hassan in Tunis just one month before his arrest

A third country in the region ranks among the worst in 2011, though one wouldn't know it from following mainstream media coverage. Bahrain, where a nascent uprising was all but quashed early in the year, levied harsh punishments on several bloggers in 2011, including Global Voices Advocacy contributor Ali Abdulemam, who was sentenced in absentia to fifteen years in prison and is currently in hiding.

Bahraini blogger Ali Abdulemam at the 2009 Arabloggers Workshop in Beirut

Elsewhere in the region, the struggle continues

Though perhaps less systematically, other countries in the region targeted bloggers as well in 2011. Prior to the fall of Ben Ali, Tunisian bloggers Slim Amamou (a Global Voices Advocacy contributor) and Azyz Amami were briefly imprisoned. Amami was then arrested again and beaten by police in September. Though the arrest was not for his blogging but for a joke told near a police station, it demonstrated the tenuous state of free expression in the country.

In Morocco, a blogger and several activists were arrested in September, while Saudi Arabia went after video bloggers who had been documenting poverty in the oil-rich country. And in the UAE, a female blogger was summoned for interrogation over a tweet.

Fighting for a better 2012

Though this represents only a fraction of those intimidated, harassed, and imprisoned in 2011, it is illustrative of the continued struggle faced by bloggers, activists, and other netizens in the region. And as 2012 kicks off with such a large number of bloggers in prison, it is apparent that there is more work to be done to ensure that the right to free expression is guaranteed for everyone. And fortunately, a growing number of grassroots organizations in the region are taking up the fight for digital rights. But nevertheless, bloggers must be ever vigilant, and consider the risks they face as they take their activism online. Global Voices salutes these brave bloggers and will continue to make sure their voices are heard throughout the world.

Photo credits: Jillian C. York.

Written by Jillian York · comments (0)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

Written by Jillian York · comments (3)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

With that in mind, the idea of a conference emerged.  Organized by AMIN (the Arabic Media and Internet Network), “PalConnect,” the first-ever Palestinian social media conference, was created with the goal of “bringing Palestinian social media activists from across Palestine together in order to increase the efforts and unite the forces for promoting the culture of social media in Palestine and increase awareness on the crucial role social media can have in Palestine.”

The entrance to the conference, at the Ramallah Cultural Palace

AMIN Executive Director Khaled Abu Aker also emphasized the conference’s role in “[encouraging] Palestinians, particularly marginalized groups with marginalized voices, to express themselves and speak their minds and to use social media tools to convey their messages to raise their voices.”

I was fortunate enough to attend the conference (December 4-6, 2011).  Sponsored by the US Consulate*, the Representative Office of the Republic of Germany in Ramallah, Al Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, SoukTel and UNESCO, among others, PalConnect was held at the Ramallah Cultural Palace, and live-streamed on the conference website, including to a group of participants gathered in Gaza.

The conference featured a fascinating, if somewhat narrow, cast of speakers, a mix of foreigners and Palestinians with an expansive focus on social media.  Though the theme was broad, it became immediately apparent that a primary interest of both speakers and participants was the use of social media to tell Palestinian stories.

The first day of the conference was likely also the best attended, with nearly three hundred individuals filling the auditorium by the end of the day.  The talks (many of which I missed, as I arrived late) were focused in the first part of the day on education, and in the latter on governance, but the real highlight of the day were the short films shown by Leaders Organization, a Ramallah-based organization.  The day was not without disappointment as well: In the afternoon, participants were informed that the group in Gaza, gathered together to watch the conference live-stream, had been disbanded by police.

Day 2 had a focus on journalism, with morning talks from the LA Times’ Robert Lopez and Al Jazeera’s Boutaina Azzabi.  Lopez discussed the use of social media to report on protests, highlighting his own experience in covering the Occupy LA protests using tools such as FourSquare and Twitter.  Azzabi spoke primarily about Al Jazeera’s methods of covering protests, including the use of citizen content and methods of vetting it, and concluded her talk by asking:  “We need the Palestinians to tell their own stories but we are there to help – what do you need from Al Jazeera?”  In the afternoon, speakers Katrin Verclas (of MobileActive) and Uqba Odeh gave talks on the use of mobile technology–relevant in that Palestine’s mobile penetration rate is estimated to be 97.5%–with focus on social change and bridging communities, respectively.

The third and final day of PalConnect saw more of a focus on activism.  My own talk on the innovative history of digital activism in the Arab world (slides available here) opened the day, followed by an extremely complementary talk by Palestinian researcher Majd Beltaji, who provided a slew of statistics and anecdotes from across the Arab world to illustrate the use of social media in this year’s revolutionary uprisings.

The afternoon was the highlight of the day, with a panel of speakers who had been brought in from Gaza (I’m afraid I don’t have their names, as the agenda was shifted at the last moment).  The panelists discussed the various challenges faced by bloggers in Gaza, with one female speaker noting that many women bloggers in Gaza avoid the use of their real names and photos, considering it too risky.  The panel of bloggers did agree that blogging has allowed greater connection between online communities in Gaza and the West Bank divided by geography and occupation.  Later in the day, I joined a panel with Dawood Hammoudeh of the Stop the Wall campaign and German blogger/journalist Christoph Sydow to discuss online safety; we received a slew of questions, many of which focused on Facebook’s safety and privacy record, and advised participants to take basic online safety measures (note: I also came equipped with loads of materials in Arabic, thanks to my organization, EFF, as well as Access and Movements.org).

One criticism agreed upon by many participants was in respect to the absence of Palestinian activists present at the weekly protests in Nabi Saleh, Bi’lin, and elsewhere in the West Bank, many of whom could have provided excellent insight into protesters’ use of digital tools for organization and documentation.  As Joseph Dana tweeted from the conference on day two: “Can you have a social media conference in Palestine and not highlight the youth activists which are using the platform?”

There were also complaints and—from what I heard secondhand—refusals to attend on the basis of US government funding.  That said, as someone who is largely critical of US government funding for programs like this, I personally felt that the Consulate’s presence was fairly minimal; though they had several employees and State Department guests at the conference, none spoke beyond the introductions and in my opinion, their influence was not felt in the programming.

All in all, PalConnect should be considered an excellent start to what will hopefully grow into a more inclusive and diverse conference series.  But if I could make just three small recommendations to the organizers of the next edition, here’s what I would say:

• Make the conference more interactive.  Allow “barcamp” style sessions for participants to break away in interest groups and learn from each other.
• Include youth activists in the speaker lineup.  Palestinian activists have a rich history of using online tools; there are plenty that could share their knowledge.
• Provide basic training.  Many participants admitted to not using Twitter–the most oft-discussed tool at the conference–while others lacked basic awareness of online safety measures.  Responsible training could go a long way.

*Full disclosure: I was invited and financially sponsored by the US Consulate of Jerusalem, but my talk was independently prepared and not at all influenced by my sponsor.

Written by Jillian York · comments (1)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

Due to a canceled flight, I unfortunately missed most of Day One, but was able to attend (and speak on) the day's final panel, with Egyptian blogger Ahmed Bahgat, Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar, Farhan Janjua, Ahmed Al Omran, and others.  Each blogger took a different approach, touching on issues from their country (or country of focus), with particularly interesting presentations from Bahgat and Janjua.

Bahgat, who tweets as @bahgatia, discussed–among other things–the issue of military trials in Egypt, emphasizing the ways in which the military crackdown on free expression has affected bloggers, mentioning in particular Maikel Nabil's forced move to a mental institution.

Janjua gave a more positive picture of the Pakistani Internet, showing an excellent video (by @Rabiagarib and @CIOPK of CIO WebStudio) on Pakistani social media statistics:

On Day One, bloggers also noted that, despite a high volume of tweets, the conference hashtag (#blogmundofoz) had not made it to Brazil's trending topics. Many accused Twitter of censorship (note: Twitter has explained that trending topics are not based purely on volume, see this post for a detailed explanation) and, in protest, have begun adding the hashtag #ocupatt (Occupy the Trending Topics) to their tweets:

A tweet from @BlogMundo

There was also a discussion on Libya, with questions from the audience. Pepe Escobar and another speaker discussed the Brazilian anti-intervention movement (there will be a protest in Rio de Janeiro against NATO on November 3).

Day Two: Blogging in Latin America

The second day of the conference started with a robust discussion on blogging and social networking in Latin America, a region that tends to be underrepresented in global conferences of this type, which often focus heavily on blogging in authoritarian or non-democratic countries.

Iroel Sánchez, a Cuban blogger who writes the blog La Pupila Insomne, discussed why he started blogging: “Tired of reading the same lies about my country in the media, I decided to open my own blog … The repercussion of certain coverage of my country reflected the vision of the United States but ignored some of the most important causes.  The media relies on stereotypes about the island but never discuss the causes that produce these situations.”

Quoting Iroel Sanchez

Talking about the value of blogging, panelist Ecuadorian journalist Osvaldo Léon of Agência Latinoamericana de Informação, said: “Building mechanisms and alternatives with anti-hegemonic character.  Today there is a reactivation of the discourse on technological speech in Northern Africa, according to which we want to say that changes in history have happened because of technology and not social change: such as ‘Facebook revolution,' ‘Twitter revolution' et cetera.”

Martin Becerra, an Argentinian blogger and professor, discussed some of the perils of the Argentinian blogosphere:

“I think that the blogs here represent an emergent space and try to give an alternative to the single-direction of information, but have not totally explored this … but I want to talk about some of the risks of these networks: I believe that the social networks make up a unique representation of those that exist in society. Another risk is that blogs and social networks are often grouped by those who think the same…people come together in society with the same or similar opinions about social things. This dogma leaves out anything that doesn't converge into basic agreements that these groups have.”

Nonetheless, he said, “the depths of the blogosphere are greater than those of traditional media.”

Jesse Freeston, a Canadian journalist who has lived and worked in Honduras, started by talking about the Occupy movement that started in New York, saying “There are thousands and thousands of people in North America who are opening their eyes and seeing discomfort for the first time.”

“Occupy is an important word,” says Freeston. “Cyber-activism, on the other hand, is a word that doesn't make sense. It's like cyber-eating; you can't do it virtually. Same with ‘occupy.'”

“‘Homos Interneticas' is a term recently coined by some anthropologists to describe people who no longer no how to do anything outside of the Internet. The world is waiting for us to do something,” Freeston argues, “These machines work like cocaine. I don't know if you've ever met someone who is high on drugs, but they think they're the most important in the room. The sad reality is that we don't tweet or Facebook for just one day, nobody will miss us,” he says, to a hearty round of applause. Freeston says he limits his use of the “drug” (the Internet) to an hour per day.

Discussing Honduras, he notes that the occupy movement really starts in the “south,” from prior movements. He then showed a video he produced for The Real News Network on the 2009 Honduran coup d'état. Honduras has led the world in attacks on journalists since the coup, with fifteen journalists murdered in eighteen months.

Day Two: The Brazilian Blogging Experience

Brazilian activist cartoonist Carlos Latuff, whose work has been regularly featured on Global Voices, particularly throughout the ‘Arab Spring,' starts the Brazilian panel thanking his country for “bringing Latin America here,” stating that Brazil tends to turn its back on the rest of Latin America.

“In the Arab Spring,” says Latuff, “I've used Twitter heavily to communicate with people in Egypt.”

Latuff then addresses the topic of ‘Twitter revolutions', stating: “Twitter, just like Facebook, is an instrument or a tool, just like the Internet is just a tool, just like a Molotov cocktail or a mobile phone is a tool - and people use the Internet to accomplish their goals.”

He explains his own history as an activist cartoonist, stating that his 1999 trip to Palestine solidified his work in the solidarity movement. He then addresses why he started drawing cartoons about other Arab countries earlier this year:

“People in Palestine contacted me before the protests in Egypt and requested I draw cartoons for them. I was afraid that the Egyptian authorities were going to kill them all. But on the 25th, protests began, and the cartoons I had drawn were often printed and shared during protests. It gave me the confidence that I was producing artwork that has relevance for people. This is what leaves me the happiest as an artist.”

“People say I'm an activist and not a cartoonist, as if those things couldn't come together,” says Latuff. “I don't care about being promoted as an artist - even if people removed my name, I'd still be happy. I'm not interested in money; anyone can reproduce my cartoons.”

“I have 50,000 Twitter followers, and many of them are from Egypt. No one knows me in Brazil; it's amazing how many Egyptian press interviews I've done,” says the cartoonist. (Note: I transcribed much of Latuff's talk here).

Following Latuff's talk, there was a robust discussion of the role of the blogosphere in Brazil, with panelists showing frustration at the mainstream media, accusing it of plagiarizing the blogosphere on numerous occasions. To that end, Conceição Oliveira calls for “the democracy of comunication in Brazil,” a call met with heavy applause.

“We have Facebook, blogs, Twitter…we just need to maximize their potential and do something amazing like they did in the Arab Spring,” says Leandro Fortes, a journalist with CartaCapital and blogger with the national commission BlogProg.

Closing Thoughts

In the closing panel, speakers discussed media regulation, a hot topic at the moment in Brazil. The panel featured Paulo Bernardo, the Brazilian Communications Minister; Jesse Chacón, the former Venezuelan Communications Minister; Damian Loreti, a member of the commission that drafted Argentina's media law; and Blanca Josales, Peru's Communications Minister.

Brazil's draft media law has sparked a polarized debate, with some–including major companies and activists–saying that the bill threatens free expression, and others (including some publications) defending the bill.

The conference, while interesting, could have benefited from greater interactions between participants. To that end, organizers should consider making the second meeting more participatory, offering breakout sessions or unconferences. Furthermore, the gender diversity on the panels was disappointing; many contained no women, while the total count of female speakers (myself included) was about three. Nevertheless, the organizers succeeded in bringing together a really interesting group of individuals from all over Latin America and the world, and should be congratulated.

Next year's conference, for which Itaipu has already promised funding, is already being discussed, and I have agreed to take part in the international planning committee to ensure greater global participation.

Written by Jillian York · comments (8)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

Photo of Alaa Abd El Fattah from personaldemocracy on Flickr (CC-BY-SA-2.0)

Alaa Abd El Fattah, a well-known Egyptian blogger and activist who was imprisoned in 2006 under the Mubarak regime, learned on Monday that he has been summoned by a military prosecutor. Though he was expected to face the prosecutor today, his summons was postponed until Sunday, when he returns from the United States, where he's speaking at a conference on technology and human rights.  According to a tweet, he suspects that he will be charged with incitement to violence and destruction of public property.

According to Al Masry Al Youm, a video blogger has claimed to have video evidence against Alaa that shows him throwing stones on October 9 and alleges that the blogger incited violence during the massacre of Coptic Christians that took place that day.  The video, posted to YouTube, contains no evidence to support the claims. In contrast, Al Masry Al Youm states that it witnessed Alaa assissting the wounded following protests on October 9.

The New York Times also reported on the situation, stating that Alaa's father is “‘not worried' about the fact that his son faces interrogation by a military prosecutor.”

Alaa, who recently attended the Third Arabloggers Meeting in Tunis, spoke Tuesday at the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference in San Francisco (which he had scheduled prior to knowledge of his interrogation), mentioning the case of jailed blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad and reiterating the call for an end to military trials in Egypt:

Let me take 30 seconds to speak out against extra-ordinary justice. I’m going to be facing it when I get back to Egypt, in front of our military government. Here you should be familiar with extraordinary justice, as it was practiced in Guantanamo.  There are roughly 12,000 civilians in military prison right now, for participating in a revolution the military pretends to have sided with, and sometimes it is for events in which the military committed the crimes, not civilians. I urge you to find ways to stand with anyone facing this future.

Since January 28, more than 12,000 civilians have been tried by military courts in Egypt.  A growing campaign demands an end to military trials, echoing Alaa's claim of extraordinary justice.  International groups such as Human Rights Watch have spoken out against the actions of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces, stating that the prosecutions demonstrate ” how Egypt’s military rulers are undermining the transition to democracy.”  The Christian Science Monitor noted that “not a single prosecution has been made in cases of military abuse and torture this year in which the Army promised investigations.”

Under SCAF rule, free expression is not a right, echoing for many life under the Mubarak regime.  In July, Asmaa Mahfouz was interrogated over a tweet, while blogger Maikel Nabil Sanad has been imprisoned since April and on hunger strike since August.

For his part, Alaa has asked that those wishing to support him stand against military trials in Egypt:

Written by Jillian York · comments (17)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

This week, San Francisco will play host to the Silicon Valley Human Rights Summit or RightsCon, a conference at which several members and friends of the Global Voices community will be speaking.  The conference, hosted by digital human rights group Access, brings together companies from Silicon Valley and beyond alongside activists, NGOs, and other players for a discussion about how the technology industry can better adhere to human rights principles in their policies and actions.

I've already written a guide to the conference for the EFF website outlining some of the most promising panels to watch, but would like to also draw attention to the role of Global Voices members in the summit, as well as some of the citizen media buzz that has occurred in the runup to the event, drawing upon to some of the issues Rebecca MacKinnon has reported on in her series of Netizen Reports.

Global Voices at the RightsCon

Global Voices co-founder Rebecca MacKinnon will play a role in framing the discussion, alongside Access director Brett Solomon and former Google executive and White House CTO Andrew McLaughlin.  Rebecca's work over the past few years has focused largely on the role of citizens in regulating the Internet, and her upcoming book Consent of the Networked, “offers a framework for concerned citizens to understand the complex and often hidden power dynamics amongst governments, corporations, and citizens in cyberspace.”  Though the book won't be available until January, you can watch Rebecca's TED talk on the subject here.

Global Voices SouthEast Asia Editor and Member of the Philippine Parliament Mong Palatino will be speaking on a panel entitled “Understanding government relations and navigating legal jurisdiction in a borderless world,” which will explore the difficulties governments, companies and civil society face in dealing with the digital world.  Mong is the Phillipines' first blogger-turned-legislator, a longtime activist, and like Rebecca, a close observer of and advocate for free expression.

Journalist and GV Author Rosebell Kagumire will be giving a mini-keynote, offering a perspective from her home country of Uganda.  As an Internet Freedom Fellow with the U.S. Department of State, Rosebell is uniquely positioned to discuss the role of online activists and journalists in covering human rights issues.

Meedan program manager and Global Voices Author Anas Qtiesh will participate in a panel discussion alongside NGO workers and corporate staffers on turning policies into practice.  As an activist, Anas works largely on free expression issues affecting his home country, Syria. He is also a Google Mapmaker Advocate, working on mapping Syria's nameless streets.

Finally, I (Jillian York), will moderate a panel exploring how defending human rights can strengthen a company's bottom line. I've written extensively on the how corporate control of the public sphere can affect free expression, and continue to document instances of what Ethan Zuckerman has termed “intermediary censorship.”  On my panel are several executives of companies that work extensively in emerging markets, as well as one of the co-founders of distributed social network Diaspora.

Netizen Buzz

Like any good conference in the digital age, RightsCon has instituted a hashtag, #RightsCon, well in advance to help generate discussion around the subjects at hand.  Twitter's Lead Counsel (and conference speaker) Alex MacGillivray has created a Twitter list to keep track of speakers, and the conference has an official account (@RightsCon) as well.

While there has been some buzz about AT&T's inclusion as a sponsor (AT&T famously acted in tandem with the NSA to spy on customers), discussion on Twitter has been largely positive, with some netizens offering suggestions for topics to be discussed.

@auralee13, for example, has presented a series of questions and suggestions she hopes to have answered by RightsCon participants:

• Gov'ts et al. often delete or revise incriminating info on the net; semantic web cd exacerbate this. Can't tech cos. help here?
• Are all the companies involved in rightscon committed to FULL net neutrality?
• Private corps. can't self-regulate effectively. Shdn't “good” cos. support regs that wd require ALL cos. to protect human rts?
• Mubarek proved some of the dangers of centralization. Wdn't it be better to go back to a more distributed net?
• Tech cos. must CLOSE “backdoors” used by gov'ts to search users' info, & REQUIRE WARRANTS (Govt's have PROVED they'll abuse.)

Meanwhile, some Syrian netizens, frustrated by the US Department of Commerce sanctions on certain communications tools, have launched a campaign on Twitter in the hopes that participating companies will pay attention to their plight.  @basselsafadi writes:

companies like #google#skype talk about human rights at #Rightscon while blocking Syrians from their services #FAIL

The US gov, #Google and #Skype need to unblock their services for #Syria or stop talking about human rights #Rightscon

The export controls on Syria are regulated by the United States Department of Commerce, which requires companies to apply for licenses to export certain technologies, including basic tools like Google Chrome and Java, and personal hosting services.  The fines associated with non-compliance are high, but the licenses aren't too difficult to obtain.  EFF (the organization for which I work full-time) has put forward several recommendations, starting with clarification of the export controls; we've also offered guidance to companies wishing for assistance in applying for licenses.

Big Brother (Isn't) Watching

Also notable is the observation that a number of Silicon Valley companies that have recently been named as complicit in government surveillance and censorship–such as Boeing's Narus and Intel/McAfee's SmartFilter–will not be present at the meeting.  As Advox and the EFF have recently reported, the export of surveillance technology to authoritarian regimes is a hot topic at the moment; the European Parliament recently took steps to ban sales of such technology, and in France, the FIDH and LDH have filed a criminal suit against tech company Amesys for involvement in Libyan surveillance.  The absence of such companies at the RightsCon is therefore disappointing; nevertheless, this is a subject that will no doubt be raised at the conference.

Written by Jillian York · comments (2)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

But why does this matter?  As many have pointed out, there's no censorship here; users are not seeing their content removed.  The problem is that observers and journalists alike have come to rely on Twitter's search function to find information about a subject, and when a search term is targeted by automated content, valuable information–such as that about a protest–gets drowned out.

This morning I was alerted to another example: “Ahava spambots.”  Ahava, an Israeli company that relies on resources in the Occupied West Bank, is the target of numerous boycott campaigns.  On Twitter, accounts like @BoycottAhava share news and information about the boycott, sending tweets manually.  In what appears to be an effort to drown out information about the boycott, numerous spambots have sprung up in recent days, tweeting the same statements repeatedly across multiple accounts, sometimes using the same avatar:

We have tracked numerous instances of this same tweet across various accounts, including:
@SaraiHellard489
@ChariseDeupreeA
@WeiBrochure2826
@CordiaPeed5221
@SaraiHellard489
@ElainaArslanian

It has become clear that targeting a search term or hashtag is an easy and sometimes effective way to drown out important speech. And while Twitter is typically responsive, removing automated accounts from search or deleting obvious spam accounts such as those shown above, if this is truly an emerging tactic, there's a considerable risk that Twitter will not be able to keep up with the bots; one solution might be for Twitter to set into motion a new mechanism for reporting instances of such tactics. In the meantime, users should take care to discern genuine speech from the tactics of spammers.

Written by Jillian York · comments (16)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

In this case, Global Voices Executive Director Ivan Sigal wrote to the NSF to ask about the block.  This was the response he received:

The URL was submitted to the Blue Coat Review Commission for recategorization to remove the “Proxy Avoidance” category which is blocked and leave the “Political/Activist” category only which is currently not blocked. However, the Commission has denied the request indicating that the website has verbiage indicating how to avoid proxy filtering, which clearly violates our security policy and therefore will remain blocked.

Finally, due to security concerns, NSF does not release any information regarding its infrastructure, appliances, systems, or policies or those of other Federal Government agencies to external sources unless specifically mandated by the Office of Inspector General and/or the Chief Information Officer or their authorized representatives.

In other words, the NSF uses Blue Coat, commercial filtering software, to block proxies and circumvention tools, as well as sites which refer or link to proxy or circumvention tools (which this site does).

As Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman points out in a blog post, this is rather ironic, given that the United States government (in particular, the Department of State's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor) directly funds circumvention technology.  Zuckerman adds:

I’m pretty surprised to learn that the scientists at NSF are working in a filtered internet environment, and that the filtering is so aggressive that discussion of internet filtering and circumvention can’t be discussed. One wonders whether the State Department might consider offering some trainings for the National Science Foundation so that employees there can learn side by side with Chinese dissidents how to overcome filtering and learn about State Department sponsored research on internet filtering. Maybe we can sneak into the building with Tor on USB keys and clandestinely smuggle them to oppressed US scientists.

We at Global Voices would like to learn what other US government offices have implemented pervasive filtering, and what software is being used.  We know that the offices of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty use Websense to block websites, but what else can you tell us?  Please leave a comment, and if you have a screenshot, send us a link to it.

Written by Jillian York · comments (12)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

Police here for me

Mahmood Al-Yousif, giving a speech at a local event

Al-Yousif is an influential blogger whose writings of late have been in favor of unifying Bahrainis. On March 15, he wrote:

[I] choose to come back [to Bahrain] to continue to espouse sanity and tolerance. To continue to try to show people that regardless of their beliefs, status or wealth, our destinies as Bahrainis are intertwined and it behoves us to find equitable ways to live together and ameliorate our differences.

I don’t want to point fingers nor am interested in apportioning further blame. I favor the recognition of the root causes of this strife in order to move on, no matter how painful that exercise may be.

Al-Yousif has long been the administrator of a site called JustBahraini, a unity campaign against sectarianism. He wrote recently of a campaign supporter being threatened by police.

His arrest was confirmed by his brother, as well as his son, who tweeted:

Police just came to my house and arrested my father, Mahmood Al-Yousif. @BahrainRights @OnlineBahrain

Photo by Rotary Club of Adliya made available under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) license.

Written by Jillian York · comments (10)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper

On my own blog, I framed the question slightly differently, asking:

The normative question in relation to the Internet (mobile is obviously a different story) is, then, how much do basic indicators like Internet and mobile penetration affect the effectiveness of such tools for organizational or revolutionary purposes? Or, can a tiny group of Internet users influence a countrywide movement?

But in comparing the role of the Internet in Egypt (where most accounts* put Internet penetration between 20-25%) and Tunisia (which hovers closer to 35%) to the potential role of the Internet in other countries, one must take into consideration the access in that country. In Libya, for example, access to the Internet is only available to about 5% of the population. Statistics on individual social media sites are also important when analyzing their role in a protest movement. CNN has an excellent map of Facebook and Internet penetration in the Middle East and North Africa here.

This chart compares Internet and mobile penetration in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya

Blogger Andrew Trench recently presented a theory on the threshold of when Internet penetration starts to matter, writing:

Social networks have also been given plenty of credit for the revolution unfolding in Egypt.

So I went and had a look at the numbers over on www.internetworldstats.com to see what they could tell us about these two scenarios. Well, fascinatingly, both Egypt and Tunisia have seen a massive growth in internet users and internet penetration over the last 10 years.
Both have now got internet penetration of over 20% and in Tunisia's case it was as high as 34%.

While it is clearly simplistic to over-state this factor and there must be many more drivers contributing to such a rapid political uprising, it is obviously a factor as evidenced by the Egyptian regime pulling the plug on the country's internet access to try and block the rising tide of revolt.

My back-of-napkin theory is this: that a rapid increase in internet penetration in a repressive regime does play an important role as it provides an unfettered channel of communication allowing disaffected citizens to share views - and more importantly - to rapidly organise and mobilise.

If Egypt and Tunisia are valid case studies, it looks like internet penetration of around 20% is the mark.

Geopolitics & Macroeconomics adds:

Internet penetration: Social networking sites were critical to sustaining the momentum in the recent protests. The internet penetration in Egypt is 16%. In Libya, it is a meagre 5% [1]. The unrest in Libya has thus far remained concentrated in regions that are geographically distant from the seat of ‘real' power (see more on this below). The dependence of momentum on internet communication is far greater in Libya than in Egypt where protests began in Cairo itself.

Taking the conversation to Pakistan, Sabene Saigol writes, on BrandRepublic:

Perhaps one reason for this is that we're still not that used to communicating via the ‘net - maybe we need greater broadband and internet penetration. Personally I think it is more to do with culture - while Pakistani internet users are savvy to using social media to connect with friends, I feel they have not yet ‘crossed over' to seeing SM as a means for professional communications - or even wider social communications that go beyond their immediate circle. Yes, there are no doubt savvy people - both within marketing and tech circles, and outside - however, these people are likely a tiny proportion of the total number of ‘net and social media users.

One map compares the number of people at university to the number of people online

The role of mobile receives perhaps even less media attention than the role of other technologies. And yet, mobile penetration is higher across the region than Internet, with only Yemen, the occupied Palestinian territories, and Syria reporting fewer than 50% mobile subscribers. Several countries in the Middle East and North Africa, including Saudi Arabia, Oman, and the UAE, boasted mobile subscriber rates of over 100%. MobileActive has detailed mobile data by country.

Micah Sifry, writing for TechPresident, has also considered mobile, arguing:

The biggest factor in the unfolding events, to me, appears to be the emergent power of young people, compounded by how urbanized they are and how connected they are by mobile phones.

If you look at the available data on degree of internet penetration, number of mobile cellular subscriptions per 100 people, percentage of population under the age of 15 and degree of urbanization, what jumps out is how the last three factors seem to matter more.

Image from Micah Sifry; Sources: MobileActive.org, InternetWorldStats.com, GlobalHealthFacts.org

Sifry adds:

With the exception of Yemen, mobile coverage in the other five countries I've focused on–Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Jordan and Iran–hovers between 98% and 100%.

Finally, the pace of mobile phone penetration has exploded, far faster than internet penetration. With the exception of Jordan, which boasted a 23% mobile phone subscription rate in 2002, in the other five countries mobile ownership was in the single digits–just six percent in Egypt and Tunisia back then. That has skyrocketed in 2007 to 76% in Tunisia and 40% in Egypt, according to MobileActive.org.

Could it be that what we're witnessing is the political coming of age of Generation TXT?

*For those interested in learning more about Internet penetration globally, there are two main organizations which track such data: the International Telecommunications Union, and the World Bank. Their statistics sometimes differ. The website Internet World Stats aggregates their data, as well as the data from smaller or more localized institutions.

This article was originally posted on Global Voices.

Written by Jillian York · comments (1)
Share: facebook · twitter · reddit · StumbleUpon · delicious · Instapaper