16 Feb 12 | Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost
The Syrian government has ordered text messages containing politically sensitive words to be blocked. Sources familiar with the country’s filtering system say that Irish technology is being used to prevent the delivery of text messages including words such as ” revolution” or “demonstration”. The country’s largest mobile phone company Syriatel Mobile Telecom SA have allegedly used blocking equipment from Cellusys Ltd, a privately-held company based in Dublin. Since public unrest in Syria erupted last year, text messages have been a crucial tool for protesters.
14 Jan 11 | Asia and Pacific, China
There has been a lot of bans in China recently, including what’s alleged to be a list of banned SMS words. The register first circulated by Shanghaiist can be grouped into six major categories including: (more…)
09 Feb 10 | Digital Freedom, Index Index, Middle East and North Africa, minipost, Uncategorized
The Iranian authorities have launched a new webmail service intended to be a substitute for public employees currently using Gmail, Yahoo mail or Hotmail accounts. The new Iran.ir webmail service is easier to control than the foreign services currently used by 95% of Iranian public sector employees. Internet and text-messaging services in Iran has recently been the victim of the government’s crackdown on free speech in the country. Both services will experience disruptions this week as heavy protests are anticipated on the anniversary of the Islamic revolution on 11 February. The authorities claim the disruptions are due to damages to the fibre-optic cables and ‘changing software’.
