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121-543: In December 2014 the OpenNet Initiative partners announced that they would no longer carry out research under the ONI banner. The ONI website, including all reports and data, is being maintained indefinitely to allow continued public access to ONI's entire archive of published work and data. ONI used several methods to test and document internet censorship in a country. The ONI principal investigators were: In December 2007,

242-608: A presidential election in 2012 regarded as free and fair by election observers, and was subsequently sworn in before judges at the Supreme Constitutional Court . Fresh protests against Morsi erupted in Egypt on 22 November 2012. More protests against Morsi's rule occurred one year into Morsi's presidency in June 2013, and on 3 July 2013, the military overthrew Morsi's government , thus removing him from office. The Arab Spring

363-477: A "campaign of intimidation". More than 2,929 people have been arrested, and at least five people died due to torture while in police custody. On 23 November 2011, the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry released its report on its investigation of the events, finding that the government had systematically tortured prisoners and committed other human rights violations. It also rejected

484-505: A "day of rage", usually Friday afternoon prayers. The protests also triggered similar unrest outside the region . Contrary to expectations the revolutions were not led by Islamists: Even though the Islamists were certainly present during the uprisings, they never determined the directions of these movements—after all, there was hardly any central leadership in any of the uprisings. Some Islamist groups initially were even reluctant to join in

605-604: A basic human right" and 86% agreed that " freedom of expression should be guaranteed on the Internet". Perception of internet censorship in the US is largely based on the First Amendment and the right for expansive free speech and access to content without regard to the consequences. According to GlobalWebIndex , over 400 million people use virtual private networks to circumvent censorship or for increased user privacy . Many of

726-461: A collective action—such as foment a political change. As of 5 April 2011 , the number of Facebook users in the Arab world surpassed 27.7 million people. Some critics have argued that digital technologies and other forms of communication—videos, cellular phones, blogs, photos, emails, and text messages—have brought about the concept of a "digital democracy" in parts of North Africa affected by

847-564: A continuation of the Arab Spring. As of 2021 , multiple conflicts are still continuing that might be seen as a result of the Arab Spring. The Syrian Civil War has caused massive political instability and economic hardship in Syria, with the Syrian pound plunging to new lows. In Libya, a major civil war recently concluded, with foreign powers intervening. In Yemen, a civil war continues to affect

968-403: A country across different ISPs. Countries may filter sensitive content on an ongoing basis and/or introduce temporary filtering during key time periods such as elections. In some cases, the censoring authorities may surreptitiously block content to mislead the public into believing that censorship has not been applied. This is achieved by returning a fake "Not Found" error message when an attempt

1089-503: A country where internet censorship is prevalent so that users in that country will be able to browse the internet in a secure, uncensored manner. In 2008 Psiphon was spun off as a Canadian corporation that continues to develop advanced censorship circumvention systems and technologies. Psiphon maintains its research and development lab and computer network "red team" at The Citizen Lab, Munk Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. There are many research papers available from

1210-495: A country-to-country basis. While some countries have moderate Internet censorship, other countries go as far as to limit the access of information such as news and suppress and silence discussion among citizens. Internet censorship also occurs in response to or in anticipation of events such as elections, protests, and riots. An example is the increased censorship due to the events of the Arab Spring . Other types of censorship include

1331-564: A decade of collaboration in the study and documentation of Internet filtering and control mechanisms around the world, the OpenNet Initiative partners will no longer carry out research under the ONI banner. The [ONI] website, including all reports and data, will be maintained indefinitely to allow continued public access to our entire archive of published work and data. Numerous important and compelling areas of study build upon prior ONI research; ONI collaborators are actively pursuing these independently, jointly, and with new partners. We believe that

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1452-492: A different jurisdiction not subject to the same censorship laws. According to GlobalWebIndex , over 400 million people use virtual private networks to circumvent censorship or for an increased level of privacy. The majority of circumvention techniques are not suitable for day to day use. There are risks to using circumvention software or other methods to bypass Internet censorship. In some countries, individuals that gain access to otherwise restricted content may be violating

1573-464: A gory image of a headless 6-year-old girl on your Facebook news feed." In the months leading up to events in Tunisia, Department of Homeland Security , Customs and Border Protection , Communications Program Manager Jonathan Stevens predicted the use of "collaborative Internet utilities" to effect governmental change. In his thesis, Webeaucracy: The Collaborative Revolution Archived 28 February 2019 at

1694-446: A major Arab movement towards democratization . The term "Arab Spring" is thus contested as it signifies an expectation that the events would replicate the example of democratic revolutions set by the West. Lastly, the term “Arab” is contested as well as it homogenises the region’s cultural specificities and oversimplifies the nature of its diverse histories and cultures. The world watched

1815-414: A number of demographic structural factors, such as a large percentage of educated but dissatisfied youth within the entire population. Catalysts for the revolts in all Northern African and Persian Gulf countries included the concentration of wealth in the hands of monarchs in power for decades, insufficient transparency of its redistribution, corruption, and especially the refusal of the youth to accept

1936-537: A number of issues. In February 2008, US Ambassador Robert Ford wrote in a leaked diplomatic cable that Algeria is "unhappy" with long-standing political alienation; that social discontent persisted throughout the country, with food strikes occurring almost every week; that there were demonstrations every day somewhere in the country; and that the Algerian government was corrupt and fragile. Some claimed that during 2010 there were as many as "9,700 riots and unrests" throughout

2057-418: A real-time examination of the information being exchanged. Blacklists may be produced manually or automatically and are often not available to non-customers of the blocking software. Blocking or filtering can be done at a centralized national level, at a decentralized sub-national level, or at an institutional level, e.g., in libraries, universities or Internet cafés . Blocking and filtering may also vary within

2178-551: A series of conflicts during the three years leading up to the Arab Spring, the most notable occurring in the mining area of Gafsa in 2008, where protests continued for many months. These protests included rallies, sit-ins, and strikes, during which there were two fatalities, an unspecified number of wounded, and dozens of arrests. In Egypt , the labor movement had been strong for years, with more than 3000 labor actions since 2004, and provided an important venue for organizing protests and collective action. One important demonstration

2299-484: A specific list or only a vague general list of the reasons allowing the removal. The phrases "at our sole discretion", "without prior notice", and "for other reasons" are common in Terms of service agreements. Internet censorship circumvention is one of the processes used by technologically savvy Internet users to bypass the technical aspects of Internet filtering and gain access to the otherwise censored material. Circumvention

2420-515: A three-month state of emergency on 15 March and asked the military to reassert its control as clashes spread across the country. On 16 March, armed soldiers and riot police cleared the protesters' camp in the Pearl Roundabout, in which 3 policemen and 3 protesters were reportedly killed. Later, on 18 March, the government tore down Pearl Roundabout monument. After the lifting of emergency law on 1 June, several large rallies were staged by

2541-488: A venue for free speech or expression. Banking and financial service providers, among other companies, have also denied services to controversial activists or organizations, a practice known as " financial deplatforming ". Law professor Glenn Reynolds dubbed 2018 the "Year of Deplatforming", in an August 2018 article in The Wall Street Journal . According to Reynolds, in 2018 "the internet giants decided to slam

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2662-464: A very high level of Internet usage (such as Bahrain with 88% of its population online in 2011) and in states with some of the lowest Internet penetration ( Yemen and Libya ). The use of social media platforms more than doubled in Arab countries during the protests, with the exception of Libya. Some researchers have shown how collective intelligence , dynamics of the crowd in participatory systems such as social media, has immense power to support

2783-435: Is "a strong and sincere mea culpa " and that his criticism of Middle East experts for "underestimating the hidden forces driving change ... while they worked instead to explain the unshakable stability of repressive authoritarian regimes" is well-placed. Toledano then quotes Gause saying, "As they wipe the egg off their faces," those experts "need to reconsider long-held assumptions about the Arab world." Tunisia experienced

2904-403: Is Al Alegre ( Foundation for Media Alternatives , Philippines). Psiphon is a censorship circumvention solution that allows users to access blocked web pages in countries where the Internet is censored . Psiphon allows a regular home computer to act as a personal, encrypted proxy server that allows the administrator to specify a username and password that is, in turn, given to someone in

3025-623: Is a concept that has been discussed and put into practice in the European Union . In May 2014, the European Court of Justice ruled against Google in Costeja , a case brought by a Spanish man who requested the removal of a link to a digitized 1998 article in La Vanguardia newspaper about an auction for his foreclosed home, for a debt that he had subsequently paid. He initially attempted to have

3146-473: Is akin to marching into a library and forcing it to pulp books. Although the ruling is intended for private individuals it opens the door to anyone who wants to whitewash their personal history....The Court's decision is a retrograde move that misunderstands the role and responsibility of search engines and the wider internet. It should send chills down the spine of everyone in the European Union who believes in

3267-526: Is an additional emergent motive for Internet filtering. In addition, networking tools and applications that allow the sharing of information related to these motives are themselves subjected to filtering and blocking. And while there is considerable variation from country to country, the blocking of web sites in a local language is roughly twice that of web sites available only in English or other international languages. Censorship directed at political opposition to

3388-456: Is an inherent problem for those wishing to censor the Internet because filtering and blocking do not remove content from the Internet, but instead block access to it. Therefore, as long as there is at least one publicly accessible uncensored system, it will often be possible to gain access to the otherwise censored material. However circumvention may not be possible by non-tech-savvy users, so blocking and filtering remain effective means of censoring

3509-554: Is being concealed. In contrast, those that lack awareness of censorship cannot easily compensate for information manipulation. Other important factors for censorship resiliency are the demand for the information being concealed, and the ability to pay the costs to circumvent censorship. Entertainment content is more resilient to online censorship than political content, and users with more education, technology access, and wider, more diverse social networks are more resilient to censorship attempts. As more people in more places begin using

3630-403: Is being used as a pretext by copyright lobby organizations to get politicians to implement similar site blocking legislation against copyright-related piracy. Examples include: Blocking the intermediate tools and applications of the Internet that can be used to assist users in accessing and sharing sensitive material is common in many countries. Examples include: The right to be forgotten

3751-628: Is blocking an IP-address of a server that hosts multiple websites, which prevents access to all of the websites rather than just those that contain content deemed offensive. Writing in 2009, Ronald Deibert , professor of political science at the University of Toronto and co-founder and one of the principal investigators of the OpenNet Initiative , and, writing in 2011, Evgeny Morzov, a visiting scholar at Stanford University and an op-ed contributor to The New York Times , explain that companies in

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3872-560: Is made to access a blocked website. Unless the censor has total control over all Internet-connected computers, such as in North Korea (who employs an intranet that only privileged citizens can access), or Cuba , total censorship of information is very difficult or impossible to achieve due to the underlying distributed technology of the Internet. Pseudonymity and data havens (such as Hyphanet ) protect free speech using technologies that guarantee material cannot be removed and prevents

3993-412: Is subject to censorship and other restrictions in most countries. Examples include: Many organizations implement filtering as part of a defense in depth strategy to protect their environments from malware , and to protect their reputations in the event of their networks being used, for example, to carry out sexual harassment. Internet filtering related to threats to national security that targets

4114-527: Is to physically go to an area where the Internet is not censored. In 2017, a so-called "Internet refugee camp" was established by IT workers in the village of Bonako, just outside an area of Cameroon where the Internet is regularly blocked. The use of HTTPS versus what originally was HTTP in web searches created greater accessibility to most sites originally blocked or heavily monitored. Many social media sites including, Facebook, Google, and Twitter have added an automatic redirection to HTTPS as of 2017. With

4235-703: Is used in Qatar , the UAE , and Yemen . The Canadian organization CitizenLab has reported that Sandvine and Procera products are used in Turkey and Egypt. On 12 March 2013, in a Special Report on Internet Surveillance , Reporters Without Borders named five "Corporate Enemies of the Internet": Amesys (France), Blue Coat Systems (U.S.), Gamma (UK and Germany), HackingTeam (Italy), and Trovicor (Germany). The companies sell products that are liable to be used by governments to violate human rights and freedom of information. RWB said that

4356-622: The Western Sahara . A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām! ( Arabic : الشعب يريد إسقاط النظام , lit.   'the people want to bring down the regime'). The wave of initial revolutions and protests faded by mid to late 2012, as many Arab Spring demonstrations were met with violent responses from authorities, pro-government militias, counterdemonstrators, and militaries. These attacks were answered with violence from protesters in some cases. Multiple large-scale conflicts followed:

4477-1156: The First Arab Spring (to distinguish from the Second Arab Spring ) was a series of anti-government protests , uprisings and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and economic stagnation . From Tunisia, the protests then spread to five other countries: Libya , Egypt , Yemen , Syria and Bahrain . Rulers were deposed ( Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia in 2011, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya in 2011, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in 2011, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012) or major uprisings and social violence occurred including riots, civil wars, or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco , Iraq , Algeria , Lebanon , Jordan , Kuwait , Oman and Sudan . Minor protests took place in Djibouti , Mauritania , Palestine , Saudi Arabia and

4598-535: The Great Recession may have had a hand as well. Some activists had taken part in programs sponsored by the US-funded National Endowment for Democracy , but the US government claimed that they did not initiate the uprisings. Numerous factors led to the protests, including issues such as reform, human rights violations, political corruption , economic decline, unemployment, extreme poverty, and

4719-658: The Syrian civil war ; the rise of ISIL , insurgency in Iraq and the following civil war ; the Egyptian Crisis , election and removal from office of Mohamed Morsi , and subsequent unrest and insurgency ; the Libyan Crisis ; and the Yemeni crisis and subsequent civil war . Regimes that lacked major oil wealth and hereditary succession arrangements were more likely to undergo regime change. A power struggle continued after

4840-588: The Tunisian Revolution protests. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned on 11 February 2011 after 18 days of massive protests, ending his 30-year presidency. The Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown on 23 August 2011, after the National Transitional Council (NTC) took control of Bab al-Azizia . He was killed on 20 October 2011 in his hometown of Sirte after the NTC took control of

4961-499: The Wayback Machine , Stevens put forth that unlike writing, printing, and telecommunications, "collaborative Internet utilities" denote a sea-change in the ability of crowds to effect social change. People and collaborative Internet utilities can be described as actor-networks; the subitizing limit (and history) suggests people left to their own devices cannot fully harness the mental power of crowds. Metcalfe's law suggests that as

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5082-725: The jurisdiction of the censoring state. Internet censorship may also put restrictions on what information can be made internet accessible. Organizations providing internet access – such as schools and libraries – may choose to preclude access to material that they consider undesirable, offensive, age-inappropriate or even illegal, and regard this as ethical behavior rather than censorship. Individuals and organizations may engage in self-censorship of material they publish, for moral, religious, or business reasons, to conform to societal norms , political views, due to intimidation, or out of fear of legal or other consequences. The extent of Internet censorship varies on

5203-564: The monarchy . Lingering frustration among the Shiite majority with being ruled by the Sunni government was a major root cause, but the protests in Tunisia and Egypt are cited as the inspiration for the demonstrations. The protests were largely peaceful until a pre-dawn raid by police on 17 February to clear protestors from Pearl Roundabout in Manama , in which police killed four protesters. Following

5324-401: The use of copyrights , defamation , harassment , and various obscene material claims as a way to deliberately suppress content. Support for and opposition to Internet censorship also varies. In a 2012 Internet Society survey , 71% of respondents agreed that "censorship should exist in some form on the Internet". In the same survey, 83% agreed that "access to the Internet should be considered

5445-816: The "biggest transformation of the Middle East since decolonization". By the end of February 2012, rulers had been forced from power in Tunisia , Egypt , Libya , and Yemen ; civil uprisings had erupted in Bahrain and Syria ; major protests had broken out in Algeria , Iraq , Jordan , Kuwait , Morocco , Oman , and Sudan ; and minor protests had occurred in Mauritania , Saudi Arabia , Djibouti , Western Sahara , and Palestine . Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on 14 January 2011 following

5566-603: The Arab Spring in North Africa . During this period, several leaders announced their intentions to step down at the end of their current terms. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir announced that he would not seek reelection in 2015 (he ultimately retracted his announcement and ran anyway), as did Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki , whose term was to end in 2014, although there were violent demonstrations demanding his immediate resignation in 2011. Protests in Jordan also caused

5687-613: The Arab Spring, people created pages on Facebook to raise awareness about alleged crimes against humanity, such as police brutality in the Egyptian Revolution (see Wael Ghonim and Death of Khaled Mohamed Saeed ). Whether the project of raising awareness was primarily pursued by Arabs themselves or simply advertised by Western social media users is a matter of debate. Jared Keller, a journalist for The Atlantic , claims that most activists and protesters used Facebook (among other social media) to organize; however, what influenced Iran

5808-451: The Egyptian government attempted, somewhat successfully, to eliminate the nation's Internet access, in order to inhibit the protesters' ability to use media activism to organize through social media . Later that day, as tens of thousands protested on the streets of Egypt's major cities, President Hosni Mubarak dismissed his government, later appointing a new cabinet. Mubarak also appointed

5929-630: The International Development Research Center of Canada approved a $ 1.2 million (CAD) project to expand the work of the Open Net Initiative to 15 countries in Asia. The project aims to build capacity among partners located in these countries to carry on the work of the Open Net Initiative at a national level. ONI Asia is managed by Rafal Rohozinski (The SecDev Group), and Ronald Deibert (The Citizen Lab). The regional coordinator

6050-417: The Internet access of large numbers of users. Different techniques and resources are used to bypass Internet censorship, including proxy websites , virtual private networks , sneakernets , the dark web and circumvention software tools. Solutions have differing ease of use, speed, security, and risks. Most, however, rely on gaining access to an Internet connection that is not subject to filtering, often in

6171-573: The Internet for important activities, there is an increase in online censorship, using increasingly sophisticated techniques. The motives, scope, and effectiveness of Internet censorship vary widely from country to country. The countries engaged in state-mandated filtering are clustered in three main regions of the world: east Asia, central Asia, and the Middle East/North Africa . Arab Spring The Arab Spring ( Arabic : الربيع العربي , romanized :  ar-rabīʻ al-ʻarabī ) or

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6292-618: The Mediterranean coast. On 17 March, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 was adopted, authorising a no-fly zone over Libya, and "all necessary measures" to protect civilians. Two days later, France, the United States and the United Kingdom intervened in Libya with a bombing campaign against pro-Gaddafi forces. A coalition of 27 states from Europe and the Middle East soon joined

6413-416: The ONI that show just how pervasive internet censorship is in a certain country or region. The topics covered in these papers include not only the software or solutions used to censor the Internet, but also what kind of content is blocked (political, social, conflict/security, Internet tools, pornographic, ...). Selected recent publications include: In an 18 December 2014 announcement, ONI said that: After

6534-454: The Saudi government during this time. He was murdered by the government a few years later. Inspired by the uprising in Tunisia and prior to his entry as a central figure in Egyptian politics, potential presidential candidate Mohamed ElBaradei warned of a "Tunisia-style explosion" in Egypt. Protests in Egypt began on 25 January 2011 and ran for 18 days. Beginning around midnight on 28 January,

6655-563: The US political journal Foreign Policy . Political scientist Marc Lynch described Arab Spring as "a term I may have unintentionally coined in a 6 January 2011 article" for Foreign Policy magazine. Protestors involved in the events however described their own political actions as "uprising" ( intifada ), Arab "awakening" ( sahwa ) and Arab "renaissance" ( nahda ), using expressions like al-marar al-Arabi (the Arab bitterness), karama (dignity) and thawra (revolution). Some authors argue that western governments, scholars and media used

6776-504: The United Nations Development Program concluded that "social media in general, and Facebook in particular, provided new sources of information the regime could not easily control and were crucial in shaping how citizens made individual decisions about participating in protests, the logistics of protest, and the likelihood of success." Marc Lynch of George Washington University said, "while social media boosters envisioned

6897-464: The United States, Finland, France, Germany, Britain, Canada, and South Africa are in part responsible for the increasing sophistication of online content filtering worldwide. While the off-the-shelf filtering software sold by Internet security companies are primarily marketed to businesses and individuals seeking to protect themselves and their employees and families, they are also used by governments to block what they consider sensitive content. Among

7018-678: The Web sites of insurgents , extremists , and terrorists often enjoys wide public support. Examples include: The protection of existing economic interests is sometimes the motivation for blocking new Internet services such as low-cost telephone services that use Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). These services can reduce the customer base of telecommunications companies, many of which enjoy entrenched monopoly positions and some of which are government sponsored or controlled. Anti-copyright activists Christian Engström , Rick Falkvinge and Oscar Swartz have alleged that censorship of child pornography

7139-735: The Year ". Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda won the 2011 World Press Photo award for his image of a Yemeni woman holding an injured family member, taken during the civil uprising in Yemen on 15 October 2011. Overthrow of Mohamed Morsi , who was convicted of espionage and inciting the killing of protestors. Yemeni crisis begins, followed by a civil war Start of War in Iraq (2014–2017) (combined estimate of events) The protests in Bahrain started on 14 February , and were initially aimed at achieving greater political freedom and respect for human rights ; they were not intended to directly threaten

7260-634: The activists regarding the protection of their whereabouts. Western countries are perceived to have generally overlooked these issues, including the United States , France , and several other European countries. The founder of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy in Washington, DC believed that even ten years after the Arab Spring, Egypt was at its lowest for human rights. Anti-government protests began in Libya on 15 February 2011. By 18 February,

7381-720: The added adoption of HTTPS use, "censors" are left with limited options of either completely blocking all content or none of it. The use of HTTPS does not inherently prevent the censorship of an entire domain, as the domain name is left unencrypted in the ClientHello of the TLS handshake. The Encrypted Client Hello TLS extension expands on HTTPS and encrypts the entire ClientHello but this depends on both client and server support. There are several motives or rationales for Internet filtering: politics and power, social norms and morals, and security concerns. Protecting existing economic interests

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7502-574: The article removed by complaining to Spain's data protection agency— Agencia Española de Protección de Datos —which rejected the claim on the grounds that it was lawful and accurate, but accepted a complaint against Google and asked Google to remove the results. Google sued in Spain and the lawsuit was transferred to the European Court of Justice. The court ruled in Costeja that search engines are responsible for

7623-653: The banned Falun Gong group. Many filtering programs allow blocking to be configured based on dozens of categories and sub-categories such as these from Websense: "abortion" (pro-life, pro-choice), "adult material" (adult content, lingerie and swimsuit, nudity, sex, sex education), "advocacy groups" (sites that promote change or reform in public policy, public opinion, social practice, economic activities, and relationships), "drugs" (abused drugs, marijuana, prescribed medications, supplements and unregulated compounds), "religion" (non-traditional religions occult and folklore, traditional religions), .... The blocking categories used by

7744-494: The censor-nominated technologies can be applied at various levels of countries and Internet infrastructure: Internet content is subject to technical censorship methods, including: Technical censorship techniques are subject to both over- and under-blocking since it is often impossible to always block exactly the targeted content without blocking other permissible material or allowing some access to targeted material and so providing more or less protection than desired. An example

7865-477: The challenges associated with Internet censorship are similar to those for offline censorship of more traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, books, music, radio, television, and film. One difference is that national borders are more permeable online: residents of a country that bans certain information can find it on websites hosted outside the country. Thus censors must work to prevent access to information even though they lack physical or legal control over

7986-573: The city. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed the GCC power-transfer deal in which a presidential election was held, resulting in his successor Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi formally replacing him as president on 27 February 2012 in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Weapons and Tuareg fighters returning from the Libyan Civil War stoked a simmering conflict in Mali that has been described as 'fallout' from

8107-405: The content they point to and thus, Google was required to comply with EU data privacy laws. It began compliance on 30 May 2014 during which it received 12,000 requests to have personal details removed from its search engine. Index on Censorship claimed that " Costeja ruling ... allows individuals to complain to search engines about information they do not like with no legal oversight. This

8228-441: The country. In Lebanon, a major banking crisis is threatening the country's economy as well as that of neighboring Syria. The denomination “Arab Spring” is contested by some scholars and observers claiming that the term is problematic for several reasons. First, it was coined by Western commentators, not those involved in the events. The first specific use of the term Arab Spring as used to denote these events may have started with

8349-554: The country. Many protests focused on issues such as education and health care, while others cited rampant corruption. In Western Sahara, the Gdeim Izik protest camp was erected 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) southeast of El Aaiún by a group of young Sahrawis on 9 October 2010. Their intention was to demonstrate against labor discrimination, unemployment, looting of resources, and human rights abuses. The camp contained between 12 000 and 20 000 inhabitants, but on 8 November 2010 it

8470-517: The creation of a new public sphere based on dialogue and mutual respect, the reality is that Islamists and their adversaries retreat to their respective camps, reinforcing each other's prejudices while throwing the occasional rhetorical bomb across the no-man's land that the center has become." Lynch also stated in a Foreign Policy article, "There is something very different about scrolling through pictures and videos of unified, chanting Yemeni or Egyptian crowds demanding democratic change and waking up to

8591-538: The crucial importance of free expression and freedom of information." Various contexts influence whether or not an internet user will be resilient to censorship attempts. Users are more resilient to censorship if they are aware that information is being manipulated. This awareness of censorship leads to users finding ways to circumvent it. Awareness of censorship also allows users to factor this manipulation into their belief systems. Knowledge of censorship also offers some citizens incentive to try to discover information that

8712-469: The demonstrations, the Bahraini authorities are known to have accelerated their crackdown. They have been targeting human rights defenders, journalists, Shiite political groups and social media critics. Saudi government forces quashed protests in the country and assisted Bahraini authorities in suppressing demonstrations there. Jamal Khashoggi , a Saudi critic, covered the Arab spring and spoke out against

8833-451: The detailed task of deciding what is or is not acceptable speech may be outsourced to the commercial vendors. Internet content is also subject to censorship methods similar to those used with more traditional media. For example: Deplatforming is a form of Internet censorship in which controversial speakers or speech are suspended, banned, or otherwise shut down by social media platforms and other service providers that generally provide

8954-953: The effects of national firewalls . The verb " rivercrab " colloquially refers to censorship of the Internet, particularly in Asia. Various parties are using different technical methods of preventing public access to undesirable resources, with varying levels of effectiveness, costs and side effects. Entities mandating and implementing the censorship usually identify them by one of the following items: keywords, domain names and IP addresses . Lists are populated from different sources, ranging from private supplier through courts to specialized government agencies ( Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, Islamic Guidance in Iran). As per Hoffmann, different methods are used to block certain websites or pages including DNS spoofing , blocking access to IPs , analyzing and filtering URLs , inspecting filter packets and resetting connections. Enforcement of

9075-667: The end of 2011 as many Egyptians expressed concern about the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces ' perceived sluggishness in instituting reforms and their grip on power. Hosni Mubarak and his former interior minister Habib el-Adly were sentenced to life in prison on the basis of their failure to stop the killings during the first six days of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution. His successor, the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamist Mohamed Morsi , won

9196-552: The end of his 42 years of power. Many institutions of the government, including Gaddafi and several top government officials, regrouped in Sirte , which Gaddafi declared to be Libya's new capital. Others fled to Sabha , Bani Walid , and remote reaches of the Libyan Desert , or to surrounding countries. However, Sabha fell in late September, Bani Walid was captured after a grueling siege weeks later, and on 20 October, fighters under

9317-454: The events of the Arab Spring unfold, "gripped by the narrative of a young generation peacefully rising up against oppressive authoritarianism to secure a more democratic political system and a brighter economic future". The Arab Spring is widely believed to have been instigated by dissatisfaction, particularly of youth and unions, with the rule of local governments, though some have speculated that wide gaps in income levels and pressures caused by

9438-455: The existing system, including many unemployed persons, political and human rights activists, labor and trade unionists, students, professors, lawyers, and others to begin the Tunisian Revolution . The series of protests and demonstrations across the Middle East and North Africa that commenced in 2010 became known as the "Arab Spring", and sometimes as the "Arab Spring and Winter", "Arab Awakening", or "Arab Uprisings", even though not all

9559-479: The filtering programs may contain errors leading to the unintended blocking of websites. The blocking of Dailymotion in early 2007 by Tunisian authorities was, according to the OpenNet Initiative , due to Secure Computing wrongly categorizing Dailymotion as pornography for its SmartFilter filtering software. It was initially thought that Tunisia had blocked Dailymotion due to satirical videos about human rights violations in Tunisia, but after Secure Computing corrected

9680-402: The first Vice President in almost 30 years. The U.S. embassy and international students began a voluntary evacuation near the end of January, as violence and rumors of violence escalated. On 10 February, Mubarak ceded all presidential power to Vice President Omar Suleiman , but soon thereafter announced that he would remain as president until the end of his term. However, protests continued

9801-530: The gates on a number of people and ideas they don't like." On 6 August 2018, for example, several major platforms, including YouTube and Facebook , executed a coordinated, permanent ban on all accounts and media associated with conservative talk show host Alex Jones and his media platform InfoWars , citing " hate speech " and "glorifying violence." Most major web service operators reserve to themselves broad rights to remove or pre-screen content, and to suspend or terminate user accounts, sometimes without giving

9922-515: The government's claims that the protests were instigated by Iran . Although the report found that systematic torture had stopped, the Bahraini government has refused entry to several international human rights groups and news organizations, and delayed a visit by a UN inspector . More than 80 people had died since the start of the uprising. Even a decade after the 2011 uprisings, the situation in Bahrain remained unchanged. The regime continued suppression against all forms of dissent. Years after

10043-463: The identification of authors. Technologically savvy users can often find ways to access blocked content. Nevertheless, blocking remains an effective means of limiting access to sensitive information for most users when censors, such as those in China , are able to devote significant resources to building and maintaining a comprehensive censorship system. The term " splinternet " is sometimes used to describe

10164-482: The immediate response to the Arab Spring. While leadership changed and regimes were held accountable, power vacuums opened across the Arab world. Ultimately, it resulted in a contentious battle between a consolidation of power by religious elites and the growing support for democracy in many Muslim-majority states. The early hopes that these popular movements would end corruption, increase political participation, and bring about greater economic equity quickly collapsed in

10285-402: The intervention. The forces were driven back from the outskirts of Benghazi, and the rebels mounted an offensive , capturing scores of towns across the coast of Libya. The offensive stalled however, and a counter-offensive by the government retook most of the towns, until a stalemate was formed between Brega and Ajdabiya , the former being held by the government and the latter in the hands of

10406-446: The law and if caught can be expelled, fired, jailed, or subject to other punishments and loss of access. In June 2011, The New York Times reported that the U.S. is engaged in a "global effort to deploy 'shadow' Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks." Another way to circumvent Internet censorship

10527-485: The limited role of social networks, such as Yemen and Libya , the role of mainstream electronic media devices—cellular phones, emails, and video clips (e.g., YouTube )—was very important to cast the light on the situation in the country and spread the word about the protests in the outside world. In Egypt , in Cairo particularly, mosques were one of the main platforms to coordinate the protest actions and raise awareness to

10648-619: The list is not exhaustive and will be expanded in the coming months. In a U.S. lawsuit filed in May 2011, Cisco is accused of helping the Chinese government build a firewall, known widely as the Golden Shield , to censor the Internet and keep tabs on dissidents. Cisco said it had made nothing special for China. Cisco is also accused of aiding the Chinese government in monitoring and apprehending members of

10769-434: The masses. Conversely, scholarship literature on the Middle East, political scientist Gregory Gause has found, had failed to predict the events of the Arab uprisings. Commenting on an early article by Gause whose review of a decade of Middle Eastern studies led him to conclude that almost no scholar foresaw what was coming, Chair of Ottoman and Turkish Studies at Tel Aviv University Ehud R. Toledano writes that Gause's finding

10890-751: The mistake access to Dailymotion was gradually restored in Tunisia. Organizations such as the Global Network Initiative , the Electronic Frontier Foundation , Amnesty International , and the American Civil Liberties Union have successfully lobbied some vendors such as Websense to make changes to their software, to refrain from doing business with repressive governments, and to educate schools who have inadvertently reconfigured their filtering software too strictly. Nevertheless, regulations and accountability related to

11011-504: The most popular filtering software programs is SmartFilter by Secure Computing in California, which was bought by McAfee in 2008. SmartFilter has been used by Tunisia , Saudi Arabia, Sudan , the UAE , Kuwait, Bahrain , Iran, and Oman , as well as the United States and the UK. Myanmar and Yemen have used filtering software from Websense . The Canadian-made commercial filter Netsweeper

11132-723: The next day, and Suleiman quickly announced that Mubarak had resigned from the presidency and transferred power to the Armed Forces of Egypt . The military immediately dissolved the Egyptian Parliament , suspended the Constitution of Egypt , and promised to lift the nation's thirty-year " emergency laws ". A civilian, Essam Sharaf , was appointed as Prime Minister of Egypt on 4 March to widespread approval among Egyptians in Tahrir Square . Violent protests, however, continued through

11253-438: The number of nodes increases, the value of collaborative actor-networks increases quadratically; collaborative Internet utilities effectively increase the subitizing limit, and, at some macro scale, these interactive collaborative actor-networks can be described by the same rules that govern Parallel Distributed Processing , resulting in crowd sourcing that acts as a type of distributed collective consciousness. The Internet assumes

11374-530: The number of protestors at the Pearl Roundabout peaked at over 150 000 after more than 100 000 protesters marched there and were coming under fire from the Bahraini Military which killed around 20 and injured over 100 protestors. On 14 March, GCC forces (composed mainly of Saudi and UAE troops) were requested by the government and occupied the country. King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa declared

11495-419: The opposition controlled most of Benghazi , the country's second-largest city. The government dispatched elite troops and militia in an attempt to recapture it, but they were repelled. By 20 February, protests had spread to the capital Tripoli , leading to a television address by Saif al-Islam Gaddafi , who warned the protestors that their country could descend into civil war. The rising death toll, numbering in

11616-540: The opposition parties. Smaller-scale protests and clashes outside of the capital have continued to occur almost daily. On 9 March 2012, over 100 000 protested in what the opposition called "the biggest march in our history". The police response has been described as a "brutal" crackdown on peaceful and unarmed protestors, including doctors and bloggers. The police carried out midnight house raids in Shia neighbourhoods, beatings at checkpoints, and denial of medical care in

11737-599: The participants in the protests were Arab . It was sparked by the first protests that occurred in Tunisia on 18 December 2010 in Sidi Bouzid, following Mohamed Bouazizi 's self-immolation in protest of police corruption and ill treatment. With the success of the protests in Tunisia, a wave of unrest sparked by the Tunisian "Burning Man" struck Algeria , Jordan , Egypt , and Yemen , then spread to other countries. The largest, most organized demonstrations often occurred on

11858-485: The platform for sustained political action in pursuit of the "long revolution". The government mobilized to break the strike through infiltration and riot police, and while the regime was somewhat successful in forestalling a strike, dissidents formed the "6 April Committee" of youths and labor activists, which became one of the major forces calling for the anti- Mubarak demonstration on 25 January in Tahrir Square . In Algeria , discontent had been building for years over

11979-633: The problematic nature of projecting Western expectations onto non-Western actors and practices. The terminology follows the Western example of the Revolutions of 1848 referred to as “Spring of Nations” and the Prague Spring in 1968, in which a Czech student, Jan Palach , set himself on fire as Mohamed Bouazizi did. In the aftermath of the Iraq War , it was used by various commentators and bloggers who anticipated

12100-587: The protests, and the major religious groups in Egypt— Salafis , al-Azhar , and the Coptic Church —initially opposed the revolution. The mufti of Egypt, Ali Gomaa , proclaimed that rising against a lawful ruler—President Mubarak—was haram , not permissible. And the Muslim Brotherhood 's old guard joined in the protests reluctantly only after being pushed by the group's young people. The Arab Spring caused

12221-488: The raid, some protesters began to expand their aims to a call for the end of the monarchy. On 18 February, army forces opened fire on protesters when they tried to reenter the roundabout, fatally wounding one. The following day protesters reoccupied Pearl Roundabout after the government ordered troops and police to withdraw. Subsequent days saw large demonstrations; on 21 February a pro-government Gathering of National Unity drew tens of thousands, whilst on 22 February

12342-693: The rebels. Focus then shifted to the west of the country, where bitter fighting continued. After a three-month-long battle , a loyalist siege of rebel-held Misrata , the third largest city in Libya, was broken in large part due to coalition air strikes. The four major fronts of combat were generally considered to be the Nafusa Mountains , the Tripolitanian coast, the Gulf of Sidra , and the southern Libyan Desert . In late August, anti-Gaddafi fighters captured Tripoli , scattering Gaddafi's government and marking

12463-508: The region. In the wake of the Arab Spring protests, a considerable amount of attention focused on the role of social media and digital technologies in allowing citizens within areas affected by "the Arab Uprisings" as a means for collective activism to circumvent state-operated media channels. The influence of social media on political activism during the Arab Spring has, however, been much debated. Protests took place both in states with

12584-557: The relevance and utility of this research agenda will continue to grow over time and that new tools, methods, and partnerships must emerge to meet this ongoing challenge. Internet censorship Internet censorship is the legal control or suppression of what can be accessed, published, or viewed on the Internet . Censorship is most often applied to specific internet domains (such as Misplaced Pages.org , for example) but exceptionally may extend to all Internet resources located outside

12705-593: The report, included human rights activists of the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), who were arrested in November 2020. The executive director of the Project on Middle East Democracy, Stephen McInerney, said that a majority of pro-democracy activists had escaped Egypt, while those who could not had gone into hiding. The Project on Middle East Democracy mentioned using encrypted communication channels to talk to

12826-465: The role of earlier totemic religious figureheads, uniting the members of society through mechanical solidarity forming a collective consciousness. Through many-to-many collaborative Internet utilities, the Webeaucracy is empowered as never before. Social networks were not the only instrument for rebels to coordinate their efforts and communicate. In the countries with the lowest Internet penetration and

12947-490: The ruling government is common in authoritarian and repressive regimes. Some countries block web sites related to religion and minority groups, often when these movements represent a threat to the ruling regimes. Examples include: Social filtering is censorship of topics that are held to be antithetical to accepted societal norms. In particular censorship of child pornography and content deemed inappropriate for children enjoys very widespread public support and such content

13068-558: The sacking of four successive governments by King Abdullah . The popular unrest in Kuwait also resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Nasser Al-Sabah 's cabinet. The geopolitical implications of the protests drew global attention. Some protesters were nominated for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize . Tawakkol Karman of Yemen was co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize due to her role organizing peaceful protests. In December 2011 Time magazine named "The Protester" its " Person of

13189-406: The same poll said that blocking Facebook greatly hindered and/or disrupted communication. Social media sites were a platform for different movements formed by many frustrated citizens, including the 2008 "April 6 Youth Movement" organized by Ahmed Mahed, which set out to organize and promote a nationwide labor strike and which inspired the later creation of the "Progressive Youth of Tunisia". During

13310-420: The start of the Arab Spring. The catalyst for the escalation of protests was the self-immolation of Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi . Unable to find work and selling fruit at a roadside stand, Bouazizi had his wares confiscated by a municipal inspector on 17 December 2010. An hour later he doused himself with gasoline and set himself afire. His death on 4 January 2011 brought together various groups dissatisfied with

13431-490: The status quo. Some protesters looked to the Turkish model as an ideal (contested but peaceful elections, fast-growing but liberal economy, secular constitution but Islamist government). Other analysts blamed the rise in food prices on commodity traders and the conversion of crops to ethanol . Yet others have claimed that the context of high rates of unemployment and corrupt political regimes led to dissent movements within

13552-473: The term to minimise people’s revolutionary aims and discourse. Joseph Massad on Al Jazeera said the term was "part of a US strategy of controlling the movement's aims and goals" and directing it towards Western-style liberal democracy . When Arab Spring protests in some countries were followed by electoral success for Islamist parties, some American pundits coined the terms Islamist Spring and Islamist Winter . The term “Spring” further illustrates

13673-571: The thousands, drew international condemnation and resulted in the resignation of several Libyan diplomats, along with calls for the government's dismantlement. Amidst ongoing efforts by demonstrators and rebel forces to wrest control of Tripoli from the Jamahiriya , the opposition set up an interim government in Benghazi to oppose Colonel Muammar Gaddafi 's rule. However, despite initial opposition success, government forces subsequently took back much of

13794-545: The uprisings. Facebook, Twitter, and other major social media played a key role in the movement of Egyptian and Tunisian activists in particular. Nine out of ten Egyptians and Tunisians responded to a poll that they used Facebook to organize protests and spread awareness. This large population of young Egyptian men referred to themselves as "the Facebook generation", exemplifying their escape from their non-modernized past. Furthermore, 28% of Egyptians and 29% of Tunisians from

13915-428: The use of commercial filters and services are often non-existent, and there is relatively little oversight from civil society or other independent groups. Vendors often consider information about what sites and content is blocked valuable intellectual property that is not made available outside the company, sometimes not even to the organizations purchasing the filters. Thus by relying upon out-of-the-box filtering systems,

14036-739: The wake of the counter-revolutionary moves by foreign state actors in Yemen, the regional and international military interventions in Bahrain and Yemen, and the destructive civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen. Some have referred to the succeeding and still ongoing conflicts as the Arab Winter . Recent uprisings in Sudan and Algeria show that the conditions that started the Arab Spring have not faded and political movements against authoritarianism and exploitation are still occurring. Since late 2018, multiple uprisings and protest movements in Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt have been seen as

14157-442: The websites themselves. This in turn requires the use of technical censorship methods that are unique to the Internet, such as site blocking and content filtering. Views about the feasibility and effectiveness of Internet censorship have evolved in parallel with the development of the Internet and censorship technologies: Blocking and filtering can be based on relatively static blacklists or be determined more dynamically based on

14278-485: Was "good old-fashioned word of mouth". Jared Keller argued that the sudden and anomalous social media output was caused from Westerners witnessing the situation(s), and then broadcasting them. The Middle East and North Africa used texting, emailing, and blogging only to organize and communicate information about internal local protests. A study by Zeynep Tufekci of the University of North Carolina and Christopher Wilson of

14399-413: Was an attempted workers' strike on 6 April 2008 at the state-run textile factories of al-Mahalla al-Kubra , just outside Cairo . The idea for this type of demonstration spread throughout the country, promoted by computer-literate working-class youths and their supporters among middle-class college students. A Facebook page, set up to promote the strike, attracted tens of thousands of followers and provided

14520-402: Was destroyed and its inhabitants evicted by Moroccan security forces. The security forces faced strong opposition from some young Sahrawi civilians, and rioting soon spread to El Aaiún and other towns within the territory, resulting in an unknown number of injuries and deaths. Violence against Sahrawis in the aftermath of the protests was cited as a reason for renewed protests months later, after

14641-435: Was generally considered to have been a success in Egypt, much like in Tunisia. However, a December 2020 report published by PRI's The World , a US-based public radio news magazine, suggests otherwise. The report says that the Egyptian government increased the amount of executions that it carried out by more than twofold, with the report saying that the government put to death approximately 60 people. This number, according to

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