Stories from 4 January 2010
Tunisia and Bahrain Block Individual Twitter Pages
First, governments blocked Blogspot. Then they blocked Facebook, and then Twitter. And just when technophiles all over the globe started groaning, a couple of governments got a bit wiser to social media and, rather than block the entire platform for the transgressions of one user, began blocking individual accounts instead....
Algeria Joins Filtering Fray
Algeria is the latest Arab country to join the ranks of Internet filterers, leaving only Iraq, Egypt, Libya, and Lebanon without widespread filtering. The first report of a blocked site came about a week ago, when users on Twitter reported www.rachad.org, the site of political movement Mouvement Rachad to be blocked. The sites have since been reported to Herdict.
Egypt: E-mail Monitor officially recognized
While the local and international media are getting more concerned about the Egyptian government's policy in restricting convoys to Gaza Strip, there isn't much information concerning the active monitoring of convoy members by the Egyptian government. Recently Foreign Affairs official revealed that e-mail communication among convoy members are monitored. In...
The Metaverse in the Arab World
Virtual worlds are becoming more complex and more intertwined with the actual world. Hence, their influence on real matters is increasing. I am speaking about the programs and games in which users, represented by avatars of their choice, can create 3D environments and virtually forge any imaginable object in them....
