06 Feb 14 | Digital Freedom, Iran, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
The idea of blogging and social media in Iran was once likely to invoke images of the 2009 Green Movement, where these platforms played a part in regular people standing up to a repressive, conservative regime, calling for reforms and demanding civil liberties. These days, it may be more linked with the country’s political elites, who really seem to have taken to communicating through Twitter and Facebook — sites now blocked for most of the population.
But while it was perhaps always expected that tech-savvy, reformist activists would find ways around the social media censorship, it may come as a surprise that some of Iran’s most conservative do the same.
A new report by Small Media sheds light on the Arzeshi, a hardline, conservative faction of online activists, devoted to the principles of the 1979 revolution and the supreme leader. The report found that the Arzeshi work around online restrictions, appearing on banned sites. In particular, the report looks at blogs and Google+, and analyses the activity of 75 Arzeshi accounts on Twitter — a site that, bar a technical glitch last September, has been blocked in Iran since 2009.
However, while the government claims to have a huge number of online supporters, the report tells a different story. Far from being an active, viral network, “the vast majority” of Arzeshi sites “were poorly-connected, hardly-read, and contained unoriginal content pasted from other sites.”
James Marchant, Small Media’s Research Manager, said: “This report is the first piece of in-depth research to illustrate the reality of Iran’s secretive community of online conservative activists. It shows that contrary to all government claims, the Arzeshi community is actually very fragmented and inward-looking – it is a long way from the energetic activist army touted by senior Iranian officials.”
This article was originally published on 6 February 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
04 Feb 14 | Digital Freedom, News and features
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Today Facebook celebrates its 10th anniversary. The social networking giant now has over 1.23 billion users, but there are still political leaders around the world who don’t want their country to have access to the site, or those who have banned it in the past amid fears it could be used to organise political rallies.
North Korea
Perhaps the most secretive country in the world little is known about internet access in Kim Jong-un’s nation. Although a new 3G network is available to foreign visitors, for the majority of the population the internet is off limits. But this doesn’t seem to bother many who, not knowing any different, enjoy the limited freedoms offered to them by the country’s intranet, Kwangmyong, which appears to be mostly used to post birthday messages.
A limited number of graduate students and professors at Pyongyang University of Science and Technology do have access to the internet (from a specialist lab) but in fear of the outside world many chose not to use it. Don’t expect to see Kim Jong-un’s personal Facebook page any time soon.
Iran
In Iran, however, political leaders have taken to social media- despite both Facebook and Twitter officially being extraordinarily difficult to access in the country. Even President Hassan Rouhani has his own Twitter account, although apparently he doesn’t write his own tweets, but access to these accounts can only be gained via a proxy server.
Facebook was initially banned in the country after the 2009 election amid fears that opposition movements were being organised via the website.
But things may be beginning to looking up as Iran’s Culture Minister, Ali Jannati, recently remarked that social networks should be made accessible to ordinary Iranians.
China
The Great Firewall of China, a censorship and surveillance project run by the Chinese government, is a force to be reckoned with. And behind this wall sits the likes of Facebook.
The social media site was first blocked following the July 2009 Ürümqi riots after it was perceived that Xinjiang activists were using Facebook to communicate, plot and plan. Since then, China’s ruling Communist Party has aggressively controlled the internet, regularly deleting posts and blocking access to websites it simply does not like the look of.
Technically, the ban on Facebook was lifted in September 2013. But only within a 17-square-mile free-trade zone in Shanghai and only to make foreign investors feel more at home. For the rest of China it is a waiting game to see if the ban lifts elsewhere.
Cuba
Facebook isn’t officially banned in Cuba but it sure is difficult to access it.
Only politicians, some journalists and medical students can legally access the web from their homes. For everyone else the only way to connect to the online world legally is via internet cafes. This may not seem much to ask but when rates for an hour of unlimited access to the web cost between $6 and $10 and the average salary is around $20 getting online becomes ridiculously expensive. High costs also don’t equal fast internet as web pages can take several minutes to load: definitely not value for money for the Caribbean country.
Bangladesh
The posting of a cartoon to Facebook saw the networking site shut down across Bangladesh in 2010. Satirical images of the prophet Muhammad, along with some of the country’s leaders, saw one man arrested and charged with “spreading malice and insulting the country’s leaders”. The ban lasted for an entire week while the images were removed.
Since then the Awami-League led government has directed a surveillance campaign at Facebook, and other social networking sites, looking for blasphemous posts.
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[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][gravityform id=”20″ title=”false” description=”false” ajax=”false”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator color=”black”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Egypt
As Egyptians took to the streets in 2011 in an attempt to overthrow the regime of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak the government cut off access to a range of social media sites. As well as preventing protestors from using the likes of Facebook to foment unrest, many websites registered in Egypt could no longer be accessed by the outside world. Twitter, YouTube, Hotmail, Google, and a “proxy service” – which would have allowed Egyptians to get around the enforced restrictions- seemed to be blocked from inside the country.
The ban lasted for several days.
Syria
Syria, however, dealt with the Arab Spring in a different manner. Facebook had been blocked in the country since 2007 as part of a crackdown on political activism, as the government feared Israeli infiltration of Syrian social networking sites. In an unprecedented move in 2011 President Bashar al-Assad lifted the five year ban in an apparent attempt to prevent unrest on his own soil following the discontent in Egypt and Tunisia.
During the ban Syrians were still able to easily access Facebook and other social networking sites using proxy servers.
Mauritius
Producing fake online profiles of celebrities is something of a hobby to some people. However, when a Facebook page proclaiming to be that of Mauritius Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam was discovered by the government in 2007 the entire Mauritius Facebook community was plunged into darkness. But the ban didn’t last for long as full access to the site was restored the following day.
These days it would seem Dr Ramgoolam has his own (real) Facebook account.
Pakistan
Another case of posting cartoons online, another case of a government banning Facebook. This time Pakistan blocked access to the website in 2010 after a Facebook page, created to promote a global online competition to submit drawings of the prophet Muhammad, was brought to their attention. Any depiction of the prophet is proscribed under certain interpretations of Islam.
The ban was lifted two weeks later but Pakistan vowed to continue blocking individual pages that seemed to contain blasphemous content.
Vietnam
During a week in November 2009, Vietnamese Facebook users reported an inability to access the website following weeks of intermittent access. Reports suggested technicians had been ordered by the government to block the social networking site, with a supposedly official decree leaked on the internet (although is authenticity was never confirmed). The government denied deliberately blocking Facebook although access to the site today is still hit-and-miss in the country.
Alongside this, what can be said on social networking sites like Facebook has also become limited. Decree 72, which came into place in September 2013, prohibits users from posting links to news stories or other news related websites on the social media site.
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31 Jan 14 | Digital Freedom, News and features, United Nations
(Image: Pseudopixels/Shutterstock)
If you live in Cuba, Iran or Sudan, and are using the increasingly popular online education tool Coursera, you are likely encounter some access difficulties from this week onwards. Coursera has been included in the US export sanctions regime.
The changes have only come about now, as Coursera believed they and other MOOCs — Massive Open Online Courses — didn’t fall under American export bans to the countries. However, as the company explained in a statement on their official blog: “We recently received information that has led to the understanding that the services offered on Coursera are not in compliance with the law as it stands.”
Coursera, in partnership with over 100 universities and organisations, from Yale to the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology to the Word Bank, offers online courses in everything from Economics and Finance to Music, Film and Audio — free of charge. Over four million students across the world are currently enrolled.
“We envision a future where everyone has access to a world-class education that has so far been available to a select few. We aim to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in,” they say.
But this noble aim is now being derailed by US economic sanctions policy. People in Cuba, Iran and Sudan will be able to browse the website, but existing students won’t be able to log onto their course pages, and new students won’t be allowed to sign up. Syria was initially included on the list, but was later removed under an exception allowing services that support NGO efforts.
Amid clear-cut cases of censorship, peaceful protesters being attacked and journalists thrown in jail, it is easy forget that access — or rather lack of it — also constitutes a threat to freedom of expression. Lack of access to freedom of expression leads to people being denied an equal voice, influence and active and meaningful participation in political processes and their wider society.
In these connected times, it can be a simple as being denied reliable internet access. Coursera is trying to tackle this problem. They “started building up a mobile-devices team so that students in emerging markets — who may not have round-the-clock access to computers with internet connectivity — can still get some of their coursework done via smartphones or tablets,” reported Forbes.
But this won’t be of much help to students affected by the sanctions, as their access is being restricted not by technological shortcomings, but by misguided policy. Education plays a vital part in helping provide people with the tools to speak out, play an active part in their society and challenge the powers that be. Taking an education opportunity away from people in Cuba, Iran and Sudan is another blow to freedom of expression in countries with already poor records in this particular field.
Furthermore, these sanctions are in part enforced in a bid to stand up for human rights. This loses some of its power, when the people on the ground in the sanctioned countries are being denied a chance to further educate themselves, gaining knowledge that could help them be their own agents of change and stand up for their own rights.
Ironically, this counterproductive move comes not long after a Sudanese civil society group called for a change to US technology sanction.
“We want to be clear that this is not an appeal to lift all sanctions from the Sudanese regime that continues to commit human rights atrocities. This is an appeal to empower Sudanese citizens through improved access to ICTs so that they can be more proactive on issues linked to democratic transformation, humanitarian assistance and technology education — an appeal to make the sanctions smarter,” said campaign coordinator Mohammed Hashim Kambal.
Digital freedom campaigners from around the world have also spoken against the US position
Coursera says they are working to “reinstate site access” to the users affects, adding that: “The Department of State and Coursera are aligned in our goals and we are working tirelessly to ensure that blockage is not permanent.”
For now, students in Iran, Cuba and Sudan could access Coursera through a VPN network.
Hopefully this barrier to freedom of expression in countries where it is sorely needed, will soon be reversed.
This article was posted on 31 January 2014 at indexoncensorship.org
23 Jan 14 | Iran, Middle East and North Africa, News and features
During the World Economic Forum currently taking place in Davos, Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani dropped some major news — he doesn’t write his own social media messages.
While there has been some confusion in the past about who actually runs his accounts (English and Persian), this confirmation from the man himself may come as a blow to his hundreds of thousands of followers. Since bursting onto the Twitter scene, the 140-characters-or-less long messages — from (later denied) holiday greetings…
…to (later deleted) details of chats with colleagues…
— have been known to cause a stir. Indeed, large parts of Iran’s political elite seem to have taken to social media, as accounts were “set up for every candidate” in last year’s presidential election. Even Ayatollah Khamenei appears to have his own Facebook page.
Meanwhile, most Iranians don’t have the same privilege. Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are all blocked in the country. The crackdown on social media came in the wake of the massive 2009 protests known as the Green Revolution. But Rouhani — or rather, his Twitter team — told the site’s founder back in October that “efforts” were being made to allow citizens to “access all info globally”.
Maybe today’s comments were part of these efforts? Maybe all the citizens of Iran have to do to access social media freely, is become friends with a high-ranking politician?
