Stories about United Arab Emirates
UAE e-magazine ordered shut.
Hetta, United Arab Emirates online magazine has been ordered shut after they lost an appeal case launched against it by the Abu Dhabi Media Company. The e-magazine which was the first of its kind when it was launched in 1996 also had its chief editor, Ahmad Mohammed Bin Gharib fined...
The Power of 140 Characters: Twitter in the Middle East
The massive, sustained protests in Iran this past month against the regime’s apparent falsification of the presidential election results was enabled by widespread employment of new communication technologies. Among them is Twitter, the micro-blog which enables its users to distribute short messages of no more than 140 characters (‘Tweets’) via...
UAE: YouTube Ban Possible, Goodbye Flickr
Bloggers in the UAE are worried that YouTube may be banned in the Emirates, after access to photography hosting site Flickr has been totally blocked. According to Press reports, YouTube is ranked among the top 10 most popular sites in the UAE and news about its possible censorship has sparked debate in the blogosphere.
UAE: Du prepares to block offensive websites
DU, the United Arab Emirates’ second Internet Service Provider serving Dubai free zones such as Dubai Media City, Dubai Internet City, Knowledge Village, Marina and other residential complexes, has started blocking access to websites that are considered “morally harmful” and offensive to local “moral, social and cultural values”. According to...
Facebook blocked in the United Arab Emirates?
According to Download Squad, access to the popular social networking website Facebook has been blocked in the United Arab Emirates. Some UAE internet users are confirming that the ban was ordered by the government-owned Etisalat. The Administrator of itihad.net (UAE) called up his ISP’s call center and they stated that...
UAE: online forum administrator sentenced to prison
Earlier this month, on August 8th, Mohamed Rashed al-Shohhi, an online forum administrator in the Emirate of Ras Al-Khaimah (UAE) has been sentenced to one year in prison and a fine of nearly US$ 13,600 (Dh50,000) for content deemed defamatory published by anonymous on the popular forum board he moderated...
Iran: Flickr users vs. The State
One of the censorship nightmares experienced by web-connected citizens living in countries engaging in Internet filtering is to find out that they can no longer access their favorite sites. Unfortunately, this is what is happening to the Flickr.com community in Iran and in the United Arab Emirates, where, a few...
