Internet Censorship in Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria

Internet censorship is a tool that has been used by governments throughout the Arab world to control the dissemination of information prior to, during, and following the Arab Spring. The Arab uprisings have profoundly affected how the governments treat the internet and the information that it provides to the public. While some countries such as Egypt and Tunisia have reduced or eliminated internet censorship as a result of the Arab uprisings, other countries such as Syria have had little progress in removing censorship. The methods that each country uses to implement internet censorship can vary greatly where some may resort to physical arrest of known internet whistleblowers, others may completely block the websites that the citizens use to communicate.

ATI server

                Prior to the 2011 uprising, under the Ben Ali administration Tunisia heavily blocked and monitored access to the websites of oppositions groups, news sites that cover the opposition, and sites that publish oppisional articles. The censorship was carried out by the Tunisian Internet Agency - Agence Tunisienne d’Internet (ATI) which is the main ISP within Tunisia. All of the privately owned ISPs in Tunisia run off of the ATI’s internet backbone. Because of this ATI was able to monitor nearly all of the internet traffic in Tunisia since it would all be tunneled through the ATI’s infrastructure at some point. ATI actively blocked many blogs and news sites using a piece of software named SmartFilter which they had been using since 2002. ATI was also capable of blocking specific Facebook pages instead of the entire website. After many citizens began using proxy applications such as TOR or Anonymizer ATI began regulating access to the websites that hosted downloads for the proxy software.

                In addition to the internet censorship the government actively attempted to hack the accounts and websites of activists and news sites with the intention of bringing the websites down permanently. Following the Tunisian uprising, Ben Ali announced that with his departure the internet censorship in Tunisia would end.

Kareem Amer

                Egypt has avoided censoring specific websites, but is known for its extensive monitoring of internet usage. This surveillance can include spying on personal mail and tapping phones without any court approval under the pretext of suspected terrorism. The terrorism in this case is just anyone who is politically active and has publicly expressed their discontent with the government. In addition to this the government also required that all internet cafés log their customers’ ID number and name.  In the years prior to the uprisings, multiple Egyptian bloggers were arrested for posting content that the government deemed could damage “social peace, national unity, or public order” (“Internet Filtering in Egypt” 3). The first arrest based on the content of a blog post was the arrest of Kareem Amer in October  of 2005 who had made posts criticizing Islam and the Egyptian regime. After serving his prison sentence of three weeks Kareem was arrested again for his blog posts and was sentenced to four years in jail on March 13, 2007.

                Before the 2011 uprisings, in 2012 the Egyptian government censored multiple websites including the Muslim Brotherhood’s website in an attempt to conceal the fraud involved in the parliamentary elections. During the January 25^th protests in 2011 the government blocked access to Twitter and the video streaming site bambuser.com in order to prevent the protesters from showing others the status of the protest. This censorship later escalated on January 27^th when the government started sequentially shutting down ISPs and cellular internet service until approximately 93% of the Egyptian networks were unreachable. Since cell phone calls could still be made and text messages could still be sent during the shutdown of the internet the protesters were able to continue giving updates on the situation. One way that Egyptians were able to get around the internet shutdown was through a service Google created called Speak to Tweet that allowed citizens without internet access to send tweets through voice mail. Internet service was restored to Egypt on February 2^nd. Following the uprisings Egypt has stopped surveillance of internet usage; however, the government is still arresting well-known bloggers such as Alaa Abdul Fattah and Alber Saber.

Speak to Tweet

                Syria employs the same techniques as Egypt and Tunisia to control information. The government censors websites, arrests bloggers, and keeps internet use under constant surveillance. The Syrian government currently censors over 200 websites that have content involving political criticism, religious matters, and content deemed as obscene. The social networks Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were censored from 2007 until 2011 when the government realized that most citizens were just using proxies to access the sites so censoring them is pointless. Despite the lift on censorship of these social networks, many sites remain censored. On multiple occasions the Syrian government has caused short-term internet black outs. Some of these black outs have coincided with protests while others seem to be unrelated to anything.

Internet Café

                The Syrian government requires that all internet cafés keep a record of who accesses the internet and the period of time that they use it. In addition, all Syria-based websites must be able to reveal the identity of the author of any article or comment when given an inquiry by the government. Prior to 2011 the Syrian government was capable of arresting citizens for arbitrary reasons due to the state of emergency that had been in effect since 1963. Because of this, many bloggers got arrested because of their statements made online. This constant fear of imprisonment caused many bloggers practice self-censorship.

                Tunisia, Egypt, and Syria all have different methods to keep the spread of information under control in order to prevent citizens from organizing against the regimes. One of these methods is fear. The governments keep their citizens from distributing counter-government information with the threat of arrest. The second method is to prevent citizens from accessing sites with information that can encourage them to act against the regime. The risk of arrest can be mitigated by staying anonymous when posting and the censorship can be avoided by using proxy services. Information control is key in suppressing a population. This is because without a mode of communication for organizing or a place to voice concerns, citizens who could have otherwise been convinced to join movements to change the country would never know about these movements. The outcomes of the revolution in  combination of these methods is most effective since either method alone can be easily mitigated.

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