Ramsey defines info-activism as: “when rights advocates turn information about their issue into action that addresses it”. He asks us: “Does anyone know the difference between data and information? Data is raw numbers, it has no meaning; when it starts to mean something, it becomes information.” He says that what Tactical Tech does is turn data into stories.

“We don’t want to focus on tools too much,” he says, “because they’re the means, not the end.” Targeted advocacy has a goal; the activist knows what she wants to do. She then adds data–numbers, words–turning it into information, and packaging it. “It’s got to be based on something; it has to have a goal,” says Ramsey.

Evidence-based campaigning is the end goal, and Tactical Tech works with individuals and organizations to make that happen. Images, such as the one below from Egypt, play a huge role.

One of the ten tactics is “witnessing.” An example given is that of the Moroccan “Targuist Sniper,” who in 2007 videotaped police agents in the south of the country taking bribes from drivers. The activist’s videos received hundreds of thousands of views.

Though witnessing may not have a huge impact within a country, it can draw global attention to a cause. This happened with Burma’s “Saffron Revolution,” but also more recently with the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and across the Arab world. In both Egypt and Burma, the regimes–recognizing the threat of digital tools–cut off Internet access.

Safety is also a huge concern for activists using online tools. As WITNESS’s Sam Gregory puts it in Tactical Tech’s video, “we don’t want to double-victimize people who’ve experienced human rights abuses.” Important is helping activists understand potential implications of their work and help them stay safe online.

There are also ways that info activists can ensure their stories aren’t discredited. A recent example from Syria involves a young man whose video was discredited by the regime; the activist then went back and re-recorded himself at each location in the video, showing his identification as well as a newspaper that displayed the date, thus validating the original video.

Ramsey share another video that is a particularly strong example of info-activism:

In the session, we discussed the potential audience for the video–young people, policymakers, gun advocates–as well as what’s particularly effective about the messaging (one thing pointed out: the watermelon is the same size as the young man’s head, causing viewers to visualize the possibility). More information on the campaign is available here.

The ensuing discussion: You need to know who you’re targeting and where your video or image fits into the larger picture; this video, for example, leaves nowhere else to go–it’s essentially the end of a campaign. “This to me fits into a larger strategy,” says Ramsey, “for example, part of the reason young people aren’t afraid of guns is because they don’t understand what could happen.”

Ramsey points out the three-pronged strategy behind rhetorical analysis: Who’s the audience? What’s the message? What tools or strategies are being used?

The next example in the session is TahrirDocuments.org, an Egyptian project that has collected various materials used during the January 25 uprising. One document, leaked early on to the Atlantic, was meant to be kept offline and provided all sorts of images and tactics teaching people how to, for example, deal with tear gas.

Lastly, Ramsey shares the Lebanese Khede Kasra campaign, which advocates for gender equality by tackling gender in the Arabic language (the kasra is placed below the word to address a female and above to address a male, but people default to the masculine). “Khede Kasra” has the double meaning of “getting things moving.” The campaign first approached people on the street, offering them a word without the kasra and seeing where they put it by default. The campaign then moved to television, and became very popular, and thus, effective.

Ramsey says: “They took a really simple idea and built a campaign around it.” The campaign even got the attention of Lebanon’s Prime Minister. “What are some of the strategies that made this effective?” asks Ramsey, “they took a good idea and put it on a ton of platforms, but the key bit is that it was participatory, allowing people to act and be a part of the change. It went beyond the things that they produced.”

We also looked at the Tunisian Presidential Airplane campaign, which Sami Ben Gharbia has highlighted as an early Tunisian info-activism campaign that helped activists in that country build their skills over time, later contributing to the effectiveness of digital tools in the January uprising.

“In Western thought, we’re taught three basic ways to argue something: ethos, logos, and pathos,” says Ramsey, “but they left out a fourth one: mythos. Mythology: a belief in something you can see, you don’t know if it’s right and it may not pull on emotion or make logical sense, but it attracts you. This is an incredibly effective way to argue.”

“Also,” points out Ramsey, “Perception is everything; if people believe something to be real, then it is to them.”

Ramsey also argues that you should take time to identify your active allies, allies, neutral parties, opponents, and active opponents, so you can be prepared to know who to work with, against, and so you know who to challenge.

An effective campaign, argues Ramsey, must be participatory, engaging, easily accessible, and simple, but this is sometimes threatening to organizations, because they have to respond to people. When the audience can engage, so too does the organization. “And the simpler the better,” says Ramsey.

Individuals and organizations interested in learning more about how to leverage digital tools for info-activism can visit Tactical Tech’s website or get in touch with Ramsey.

Update: Further testing by EFF International Activist Eva Galperin found that, in addition to Arab countries and Iran, Myanmar, Nigeria, Kazahstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan are also affected.

This morning, a Syrian Hotmail user noted that he could not turn on HTTPS on Hotmail. At closer look, we learned that the user was actually in Jordan, and had his Hotmail location set to Jordan as well…and yet he was still blocked from turning on the “use HTTPS automatically” setting.

Specifically, Microsoft Hotmail’s HTTPS feature states that turning on HTTPS will work for Hotmail over the Web, but will cause errors through external programs.  Users can still force HTTPS temporarily, for a given page.  We have confirmed that users in some of the countries below are able to force HTTPS (either by typing it in manually or using a program like HTTPS Everywhere, however, we cannot confirm that this works for everyone, or on all pages).  In any case, it’s imperative that users have access to encryption all the time.

Replicating the Error

I quickly created a Hotmail account to see if I could replicate the situation; sure enough, when I set my location to the United States, I could turn on HTTPS as a setting, but when I switched to Jordan, I could not. I tested several other Arab countries–Syria, Bahrain, Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria–also no HTTPS. I then tested Guatemala, Israel, and Turkey: all fine. France, German: fine. Iran…no HTTPS.

To replicate or test for the error yourself, log in to your Hotmail account and set your location, then try to turn on HTTPS.

The message received by users with their settings turned to one of the aforementioned countries is: Your Windows Live ID can’t use HTTPS automatically because this feature is not available for your account type.

…in which “account type” = Arab/Iranian.

Incidentally, users in the aforementioned countries are able to easily change their location setting to the United States (or another country) and then successfully turn on HTTPS. It is therefore interesting that, whatever Microsoft’s reasons for barring users from HTTPS, they chose not to enforce by IP address.

By contrast, Yahoo mail does not offer HTTPS, while Gmail enforces HTTPS by default in all countries.

This isn’t the first time Microsoft has acted prejudicially toward Arab users: In 2010, my colleague Helmi Noman at the OpenNet Initiative discovered that Microsoft’s Bing was blocking Arabic-speaking users (e.g., those using the Arabic-language/Arab countries version of Bing) from searching for certain terms, mostly related to sexual content.

For activists, there are two courses of action: Either change your location to a country that will allow you to enforce HTTPS or switch to Gmail or another secure service.

As for Microsoft, we’ve let them know about the situation.  It is my hope that this is a mistake and will soon be corrected.  I’ll keep you posted.

1. Choose a strong password.

The easiest way for someone to gain unwanted access to your account is by figuring out your password. A strong password is a combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, plus numbers and symbols. The password should not contain things that are easy to guess, such as your name, a pet’s name, your city, or your school. It should be at least 8 characters long. There are precious few resources on creating a strong “mot de passe” but here is a good English source.

2. Use HTTPS.

Facebook recently rolled out HTTPS to all of its users, including in Morocco, but that selection is not default. To turn on HTTPS, go to “Account” in the upper-right corner of Facebook, then select “Account Settings.” Click “Account Security” (3rd from bottom) and check the boxes that say “Secure browsing (https)” and “When a new computer or device logs into this account.” The first will provide you with encryption, the second will send you an email when someone else has logged into your account.

HTTPS Everywhere is a great tool that works with Firefox and encrypts your communications with lots of major websites.

3. Be cautious of Facebook’s increased security choices.

Facebook allows you to increase your security in three ways: By adding a secondary email address,adding a mobile phone to confirm login, and by adding a security question. The first option is great. The second two come with problems: First, if you add a mobile phone to confirm your account login, you must also be cautious about your mobile’s whereabouts. If your mobile is stolen, it may be possible for someone to use that information to gain access to your account.

The second concern is the security question: Though security questions are a good thing and can help to prevent others from gaining access to your account, you must be careful to choose an answer that no one else knows. For example, if the question is “what is the last name of your first grade teacher?” you would be safer giving a fake answer that only you know. If you give the genuine answer, any of your first grade classmates could potentially gain access. And never give an answer that is public information.

Have tips to add? Leave a comment.

It’s a valid question–that is, if we lived in a vacuum where all media were viewed equally and all peoples and countries viewed along the same plane.  But we don’t and they’re not.  The Arab world is viewed with suspicion and distrust by most Americans, including diplomats sent to work in the region (as we’ve seen from WikiLeaks cables), and its dictators long supported–whether quietly or outright–out of fear of Islamist uprising.  Democracy in the Middle East is paid lip service, but never truly supported.

In a sense, then–and putting aside the fact that their reporting of events on the ground in Tunisia has been truly excellent–Al Jazeera can be seen as taking care of their own, in the same way the US media does.  Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage acknowledged that on the Charlie Rose Show last fall, in the midst of praise for the channel:

“I watch Al Jazeera every day…because it’s news.  I’m not interested in what Lindsay Lohan is doing…I’m interested in news…they’re still reporting news.  Do they have a slant?  Yeah, I think I’m round enough where I can realize what the slant is, but as I said, I’m not interested in the rehabilitation of Lindsay Lohan.”

Ginsberg on the other hand, who is no slouch when it comes to Arab media (he speaks the language fluently and is president of the–pretty cool–Layalina Productions), writes:

Americans should not underestimate the role that the ever popular Arab news channel Al Jazeera plays in challenging the Arab world’s status quo, using events in Tunisia to fuel its favorite political pastime of disgorging its anti-authoritarian editorial bias across all of its media platforms — much to the anger and hostility of most Arab rulers, particularly those Al Jazeera views as too pro-western (Al Jazeera gives quite a pass to the despotic Syrian regime as well as to its Qatari benefactors).

Key phrase: “Anti-authoritarian editorial bias.”  In another universe, or a country far far away, one might call that a “pro-democracy editorial bias,” or in other words, something possessed by every single mainstream American channel.  To put it bluntly, can you imagine MSNBC or CNN (the two “reasonable” and “mainstream” US news stations) ever taking a non-democratic stance?  No, you probably can’t.  On the other hand, why isn’t Ginsberg criticizing his own country’s Fox News, which surely throws gasoline on the fire of right-wing (American and otherwise) politics on a daily basis?  And have any major US stations ever reported fairly on the Middle East?  Do they criticize Hosni Mubarak or Ben Ali?  Or, for that matter, Israel?  The answer is an emphatic “no.”

It’s also worth noting here that Ginsberg is stretching the facts when he claims that Al Jazeera gives Syria a pass: Syrian opposition leaders are regularly hosted, with at least one individual, Habib Issa, arrested after appearing on the channel.  More recently, tensions between Al Jazeera and Syria grew after the station gave an appearance to Mohammed Riyadh Shaqafi, of Syria’s banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Ginsberg also notes that “Al Jazeera’s editorial and opinion commentators are having a field day mesmerizing how a similar spectacle could unfold across other Arab states.”  While I can’t help but note the truth in this, it’s not without good reason: Following the Tunisian uprising, no fewer than six youth self-immolated in countries across the Maghreb, from Mauritania to Egypt.  Social media–which may not have overthrown the Tunisian regime, but which certainly assisted the media’s coverage, perhaps more than ever before–is abuzz with talk of who’s next.  The “Arab street” is indeed talking about change, but should Al Jazeera really get the credit for that?  It’s not as if anti-authoritarianism is something that emerged in the past month.

Despite Ginsberg’s pedigree, it should be noted that he’s also a major AIPAC player, something most reasonable people would see as a conflict of interest to democratic ideals in the Arab world.  After all, staunch Israel supporters have little interest in disrupting the status quo, particularly in neighboring (and friendly) Egypt and Jordan.

All things considered, it would be irresponsible not to consider Ginsberg’s closing argument:

Let’s hope that Al Jazeera’s penchant for regional anarchy is tempered by cooler heads within Arab democratic dissident ranks who have far more to lose than audience share if they prematurely swallow Al Jazeera’s bait.

Though I think “penchant for regional anarchy” is a wee bit of a stretch (okay, an enormous stretch), but Ginsberg is not wrong to wish for “cooler heads” over the next few months, given the real risk in such protests (ask Tunisians if they really thought this would be the time it worked).  Nevertheless, take or leave Al Jazeera, it won’t be what gets Jordanians, Egyptians, or Libyans out in the street, the conditions of their countries–and the degree to which their regimes have become despotic–will be.

But just as the magazine was gaining traction, it was silenced, banned in December 2006 after its 10th issue, which focused on the role of humor in Moroccan society.  The offending article, written by young journalist and blogger Sana Al-Aji, shared some of Morocco’s most popular–and common–jokes dealing with class, society, and of course, religion.  It was the few jokes dealing with religion that were deemed particularly offensive, resulting in a campaign by Morocco’s religious right to take down the magazine, and ending with the authorities doing just that. The magazine was suspended for two months and Al-Aji, along with editor-in-chief Driss Ksikes, were fined and given three-year suspended sentences.

During the magazine’s absence, publisher Ahmed Reda Benchemsi, who also serves as the editor of TelQuel, ensured the magazine would not be forgotten by adding an insert into French-language weekly.  By March 15, 2007, Nichane rebounded, landing back on newsstands and for the next three years, the magazine was in many ways a success, a best-selling liberal magazine with a unique reach due to its use of darija.

At the same time, Nichane’s rocky beginnings were only a small indication of the troubles it would face down the road.  During its four years of existence, the publication repeatedly faced censure: its publisher, Benchemsi, was sued by the government for allegedly “lacking respect for the King” (the trial remains on hold), and three of its issues were seized, with two burned by police, causing massive financial losses for the magazine.

Sadly, today, Nichane’s legacy, its triumphs and its struggles, come to a close, as publisher Benchemsi announces the magazine’s closure.  In the end, it wasn’t the magazine’s legal troubles, but an advertiser boycott initiated by the royal-owned ONA group, a massive holding company that dominates the Moroccan economy.  Despite the publication’s massive popularity, the TelQuel group lost over $1 million. Explained Benchemsi in a press release, “this financial bleeding had to be stopped.”

As documented by the Committee to Protect Journalists, Morocco has seen a backslide in press freedoms over the course of the past few years, following a period of relative openness at the start of Mohammed VI’s reign. From the crippling damages imposed on three dailies for criticizing Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi to the imprisonment of Al-Michaal editor Driss Chahtan for publishing speculations about the health of the King, press freedom in Morocco has experienced a staggering phase of regression in the past year alone.

The latest restrictions on the press should give the international community pause.  As a close ally to the United States, Morocco is frequently posited as a bastion of freedom in the Arab world, and in many ways it is: the country is home to a vibrant independent press, with over 600 daily and weekly publications.  And yet, these independent publications must adhere to strict red lines–taboo topics include the royal family, the Western Sahara, and Islam–or risk punitive measures.

In reality, Morocco is a fickle ally;  it craves the appearance of modernity, but kills the very tools–a free press, strong democratic institutions–that could transform appearance into reality.  The government of King Mohammed VI does not shut down publications outright like its predecessor, preferring instead to find new and creative ways to stifle press freedom.  This time, the irony lies in the use of a very modern tool: the boycott power of a business consortium.

As a result, the monarchy has failed to deliver the promise of a healthy, progressive society that values its citizens.

Recommended:

The Atlantic – Morocco’s Largest Arabic Weekly to Fold Under State Pressure

The Arabist – Morocco’s Nichane folding

AT first glance, they seem like typical American college students on their junior year abroad, swapping stories of language mishaps and cultural clashes, sharing sightseeing tips and travel deals. But these students are not studying at Oxford, the Sorbonne or an art institute in Florence.

Instead, they are attending the American University in Cairo, studying Arabic, not French, and dealing with cultural, social and religious matters far more complex than those in Spain or Italy.

Thus begins the latest New York Times piece on studying abroad in the Arab world. I’m quite used to these by now; I sought them out in college when I took my own first foray into the region, to study Arabic at Al Akhawayn University in Morocco.

Though I should be used to them, I’m still a bit taken aback at how these articles haven’t changed much over the past ten years. They still reek of shock and awe, and they still include the same tropes, like this gem:

“We took a cab to Iraq from Turkey,” he said, as casually as if he had just jumped the Eurostar from London to Paris.

Now, I don’t expect readers not to find that fascinating; much of the Arab world is considerably more expensive and difficult to get to for Americans than is Europe, and in a country where only about a quarter of the population holds a passport, it’s not all that strange to expect that far fewer have ever traveled outside of easily accessible Europe.

The problem, then, is not Americans, but the Times itself. Its journalists are not the average American; they can afford to, or are sent to, places like Cairo from where they report on stories like this. They experience it firsthand, and yet every time, come back in shock at how “strange” and “different” the Arab world is.

It’s no wonder then, that Americans continue to believe it. When the mainstream media is doing the reporting fear mongering, it’s no wonder the average reader is booking tickets to Paris and not Beirut.

One need also ask: If this is how the Times reports on a subject like studying abroad, how can we possibly expect them to be relevant in their news coverage of the Middle East? How can we expect these journalists, who can’t seem to move beyond how “exotic” the Middle East is, to be fair and balanced in their reporting of it?

In my opinion, we can’t. The New York Times has a massive budget (at least in comparison to other media outlets) and has reporters in numerous places across the region. It can, and does, cover stories that other outlets can’t or don’t. And it has a few good journalists who seem to “get” the region.

At the same time, its MidEast bureau shows consistent bias toward Israel and the United States’ occupation of Iraq. Earlier this year, bureau chief Ethan Bronner was called out by the New York Times ombudsman after it was learned that Bronner’s son, an American citizen, had chosen to enlist in a program of the Israeli Defense Forces; though the ombudsman recommended Bronner step back due to the obvious conflict of interest, nothing came of the report, and Bronner maintains his position…and his biases.

So what is the solution? In my humble opinion, a healthy media diet goes a long way. Relying on the New York Times‘ coverage will get you an orientalist slant; balancing it out with a strong dose of blogs (Global Voices‘ Middle East and North Africa section is a good start), local media (varies by country, of course), and alternative or even other mainstream media (Foreign Policy, and the LA Times rank amongst my favorites) will take you much farther.

Better yet, here’s hoping some of those kids profiled in the Times piece take up journalism. At least we know they’ve spent at least a few months in the region.

Julia Roberts, McDonald’s, Mickey Mouse.

This was how a young Moroccan student of mine described the United States to me. Images from his youth: Pretty Woman, glimpsed illicitly on satellite TV as a boy, or downloaded by BitTorrent. McDonald’s, which arrived in his hometown when he was eight, a beacon of American consumerism. Mickey Mouse, drawn on medina walls, advertising a kindergarten down the street. If those are his images of America, then they are too my images of Morocco, mixed with salty black olives bought from the local hanout and Amazir wine, hidden in paper bags for the journey home.

I am not Moroccan, and so my musings on Moroccan identity exist only from the perspective as an outsider. Moroccan identity has been fetishized and orientalized by Westerners since the time of Edith Wharton, and continues to be. In popular travel writing, Moroccans are described as mystical beings, devoutly attached to Islam but yearning for modernity, in love with everything Francophone, and confused, caught somewhere between east and west, tradition and modernity. To them, Moroccans fit one singular, albeit complex, mold. In my classroom, Moroccan students themselves would often refer to the “Moroccan mentality,” an intangible thing that needn’t be defined, as everyone knew quite what it was. Everyone except me, that is.

When I first settled into my life in Morocco six years ago, I was indeed struck by certain paradoxes: How my newfound friends could pray the Maghrib prayer then go out clubbing that night, stumbling home intoxicated, just to start over again the next morning. How a female friend would tell me she longed to wear hijab but simply couldn’t, because her parents wouldn’t allow it. But with time, these things seem far less strange; they are small patches in the fabric of Moroccan society, things we just live with.

At the same time, I recall being frustrated with the stagnancy of discussion around certain topics. It took almost a year for a close friend to admit to me that she was an atheist, and even then, it’s still our little secret. And forget bringing up the Western Sahara–despite global opinion to the contrary, nearly every Moroccan I’ve ever met believes it to be wholly and unarguably part of their country.

But over time, the diversity that I at first thought was lacking made itself apparent to me, as I navigated Morocco’s tightly woven hip hop scene, met atheists and punks, lesbians, and young Sufi hopefuls. What was nearly impossible to crack on the surface slowly revealed itself to me in my friendships, and as time passed, I found that much of what keeps these “secrets” hidden is a desire to keep up appearances…not so different from life in my own country.

Ultimately, however, there is a unifying thread amongst Moroccans that is hard to put a finger on. It is made up of thousands of small parts: it is in the overwhelming sense of hospitality, the willingness to offer–and drink–a glass of mint tea with a stranger. It is in the language, the darija of the streets that puzzles other Arabs but which holds the key to so many doors in Morocco. And yes, it is in couscous, and djellabas, and tajines, things with roots across the region but that have become so quintessentially Moroccan, synonymous really, just as (for better or for worse) Julia Roberts, McDonald’s, and Mickey Mouse are to the United States.

What Morocco is not, however, is a simple place stuck in time, contrary to what many travel writers would have you believe. It is too easy, as many travel writers have found, to stick with the same simplistic tropes: “a place stuck in time,” “a disorienting and surreal mix of old and new.” In focusing on the contrasts, one misses out on what makes Morocco so fantastic: its people and their ability and willingness to reassess identity as time goes on. As Morocco grows and develops, so does Moroccan identity.

He’s definitely right–from Morocco and Tunisia, where Facebook has become a tool to support threatened bloggers to Syria, where the government blocks the site, allegedly because of its organizing properties, Facebook is being used for political purposes.  As for the region’s Facebook use, the numbers speak for themselves: According to one site, Morocco, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia all boast over 1 million users, and Egypt has over 2 million, among the developing world’s largest markets (for comparison, China has just over 50,000 users; Brazil 2 million; and India about 4 million).

The downfall, of course, is Facebook itself, which has garnered a reputation for selectively enforcing its own TOS (see my latest Advox piece, “Facebook Removes Moroccan Secularist Group and its Founder,” from which this piece borrows a few thoughts).

Although the site’s terms of service (TOS) ban everything from nudity, to speech deemed hateful, to using a pseudonym to open an account, they are selectively enforced. In mid-2009 Facebook officials stated that they would not delete Holocaust denial groups outright despite pressure from Jewish groups, but only a few months earlier deleted accounts of users who posted photographs of themselves breastfeeding their babies. Other groups that have been allowed to remain include a pro-rape group called “Define Statutory,” left up for two months despite numerous calls for its removal. A quick search on Facebook uncovers numerous groups undoubtedly in violation of the TOS: There’s one called “I Hate Those Jews and Mindless Sluttt Bags, But Mainly Jews,” with 249 members; another called “Fuck Islam” boasts nearly 2,000 members.

In fact, a number of Facebook groups advocating for violence have been allowed to remain…there’s Kill all terrorists!!!, kill aLL pedOphILES, kill all the damn bastards….that hurt animals!!!!, who ever kills a cop should die, and so on.  There are numerous groups advocating for the bombing of Iran, though I imagine that a similar group calling for the bombing of, well, almost any other country, would be rapidly deleted.  In other words, Facebook selectively applies their TOS to what’s popular and politically correct at any given time.

The TOS appear only to be enforced when enough users report a group as inappropriate, and once a group is removed, its creators often find it impossible to get it back. Users whose personal accounts are removed sometimes create a new account, only to find it deleted again soon afterward.

As I mentioned on Advox, Moroccan activist Kacem El Ghazzali recently found that his own account had been deleted, only two days after complaining to Facebook about the removal of a group he had created which advocated for the separation of religion and education in the Arab world.  El Ghazzali reported having received emails from Muslims opposing the group shortly before it was taken down.  I personally wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook was responding to Moroccan government pressure; two years ago, when Fouad Mourtada was arrested for creating a fake profile of Moroccan Prince Moulay Rachid, many speculated that Facebook had turned his information over to the government (Facebook neither confirmed nor denied the accusation).

To me, this incident is foreboding, and sets a frightening tone for the numerous activists across the region who use Facebook to organize protests and political groups.  Activists in the Arab world often face multiple risks: Not just the deletion of their Facebook group or profile, but the risk of having one’s information turned over to their local authorities, who might consider their online statements criminal.  And this is all assuming Facebook isn’t blocked by their own government already.

And yet, I shouldn’t be surprised.  In early 2009, during Israel’s attacks on Gaza, many activists reported that news articles and photos had gone missing from their Facebook walls.  Others were prohibited from posting articles to their own walls if too many users had deemed the article inappropriate (see inane example below).

It would appear Facebook fancies itself a democracy: users report things they deem offensive, and when enough do so, the Facebook leaders listen and remove it.  And yet, offensiveness is quite clearly in the eye of the beholder (see my post on hate speech).  The above image shows the error message I was met with when attempting to post a piece by Boston Globe columnist and grammarian Jan Freeman.  The post was about the word “fuck,” yet never mentioned it by name, instead substituting in “the f-word.”  Somewhere, someone (or likely, several someones) found that offensive and reported it, thus making it impossible for me to share it with my friends on Facebook (fun fact: if you use a URL shortener, you can get around the ban).

My friend and colleague Ethan Zuckerman has written about social media as the new public sphere in the context of free speech, saying “If we adopt the public sphere approach, we want to open any technologies that allow public communication and debate – blogs, Twitter, YouTube, and virtually anything else that fits under the banner of Web 2.0.”

Facebook undoubtedly fits into that category, thus what it comes down to is this: If Facebook desires to be at the forefront of said public sphere, it needs to adopt a set of principles that will allow people to use it without fear of deletion, or of having their information turned over to authorities.  If it doesn’t, then my recommendation to activists using Facebook would be to take their business–and their safety, security, and privacy–elsewhere.

Thinking back through my years there, it would seem a natural conclusion, then, to write about Morocco through the lens of taste.  The more I think about it, the more I realize how much of my life there revolved around food–much more so than here.  At home in the U.S., I’m hardly a creature of habit when it comes to food; breakfast is what’s cheap (usually oatmeal), and lunch is often what’s left over.  The remaining meal is only slightly more elaborate, but is ten times more likely to be channa masala than a cheeseburger: Americana just isn’t my thing.

But in Morocco, food for me becomes emotional.  I suppose it happened on my first day there, when I drank a small cup of black espresso for the first time, pretending it was no big thing; espresso became my defense mechanism.  My first Friday couscous established a ritual: I would spend the whole week looking forward to Friday, the best and most filling meal of the week setting off the weekend.  A cup of café nous-nous became something I’d leave home early for on my way to work; a treat to sip in silence while preparing my lesson plans.

Harsha, those small, round semolina pancakes that can’t possibly be that hard to make, have always been my favorite.  I bit into one for the first time in Ifrane on a hot late-May afternoon, thinking it would taste like cornbread.  It didn’t.  Still, I fell in love and each day would try it with different toppings.  Harsha avec miel? Yes, please.  With La Vache Qui Rit? Absolutely.  With maple syrup brought to me from Canada?  Hell yes.  There was this small harsha shop around the corner from my first apartment that kept weird hours.  The woman who worked there was tall, blonde, gorgeous, not Moroccan-looking at all (whatever that means), and I remember being surprised to discover she spoke not a word of French.  I would pop over after an early class, fingers crossed.  I would buy one or two harsha cakes and a little packet of cheese and eat it standing there, still hot.  Later, after I’d moved to a new apartment, I was pleased when a little harsha and melwi shop opened about halfway between my home and work.  Vive le coincidence.

And that new apartment?  It was located directly above a bakery.  On hot summer days, I’d get up as early as 4 am, unable to sleep, jarred awake by the overwhelming aroma of baking bread.  Khubz.  I’d wait until the shop opened at 6 or so and would run downstairs, djellaba tossed over my pajamas, for a loaf and a couple of pastries.  Oh, how I lived on pastries!  I could never do that in the U.S., but somehow in Morocco weight never seemed to be a problem.  I’d stuff my face with chocolate croissants all morning then stuff my face with couscous at noon, and never gain a pound.

It wasn’t just pastries and huge lunches, it was everything.  What in hindsight looks magical was likely just the “magical” metabolism of a 23-year-old.  I drank regular soda, ate cones of almonds, took my coffee with three sugar cubes.  A marrakshia, that beast of all pastries, chocolate on the outside, something kind of like Bavarian cream but thicker on the inside…and usually the size of your hand, was barely a force to be reckoned with (fun fact: in the last edition of the Lonely Planet Morocco, the author thanks me for showing him around Meknes and bestows upon me an imaginary marrakshia).

Nostalgia through food.  Foodstalgia.  I haven’t been back since 2007.  I’m quite sure that the food hasn’t changed a bit, but the places, the names, the faces most certainly have.  I hear there’s a Pizza Hut now.  I hear Chinese food is taking off.  With globalization always comes crappy food.

One last story.  When my parents came to visit, I was eager to show my daring father Morocco’s culinary delights.  One evening near Place Hedim, as we were looking for a taxi to return home, we stumbled across a man selling snails.  His setup couldn’t have been more rudimentary: he was seated on a bucket in front of a small table, on which a giant pot bubbled atop a small sterno flame.  The bubbling pot, of course, was filled with escargot, which you were expected to eat by stabbing them with tiny safety pins offered by the seller.  I could tell from the look on my dad’s face that he was icked out by the hygiene (or lack thereof), but daring is daring, and so he did it.  As we snacked on snails (much to my mother’s horror) in the middle of a busy street, it occurred to me how ordinary such things had become, and I realized that what makes a place feel like home is your comfort level with the food.  If you can’t eat like a local, you’ll never fit in.  Vive les escargots!

Lest this seem like a simple case of poor leadership or low readership, one must first understand why Le Journal is suffering financially. In 2006, Le Journal was ordered to pay MAD 3 million ($370,000) in damages following a defamation case brought forth by Claude Moniquet of European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center. Le Journal had criticized a report by the organization on the Western Sahara for closely toeing the Moroccan government’s official line.

Jamaï had come under fire before; earlier that year, following the publication of the Danish cartoons that negatively depicted the Prophet, Le Journal had issued a special report, re-publishing one of the cartoons, inked out as not to add fuel to the fire. Still, protesters gathered at the magazine’s Casablanca headquarters. Le Journal was also shut down by authorities twice between 2000 and 2005.

Following the 2006 defamation case, Jamaï left Morocco and headed to the United States, where he became a Nieman Fellow at Harvard for a time, completed a Masters in Public Administration at Harvard’s Kennedy School, served as a visiting scholar at the University of San Diego, and wrote for Newsweek’s venerable PostGlobal. In 2009, he returned to Morocco to rejoin Le Journal. Less than a year later, Le Journal faces closure for its lack of funding, brought about by numerous palace attempts to stifle its voices.

Le Journal, and another Moroccan weekly, TelQuel, are essentially why I learned to read French. Few English-language sources on Morocco are available, and those that do exist tend to follow the government’s official line. The two daring (and often competing) French weeklies do not, which is why they’ve suffered under Morocco’s repressive media environment. Le Journal often took the high road over gossipy TelQuel, however, taking the government to task on its many promises, questioning the government’s stance on the Sahara, and uncovering human rights abuses.

Like Issandr El Amrani points out, the closure of Le Journal does not alone indicate Morocco’s slide backwards. The arrests of bloggers Bashir Hazzem, Mohammed Erraji, and Boubaker Al-Yadib, of Facebooker Fouad Mourtada, of countless journalists, should speak for themselves. Yet, Morocco continues to maintain an appearance of moving forward, especially to the United States, which proudly touts Morocco’s Mudawana and subsequent other new rights to women as evidence.

This is an issue that cannot, must not be ignored. Morocco, in case I don’t say it enough, is a beautiful place. I spent more than two wonderful years there, and would still happily go back, despite its faults. But in order for Morocco, for any country, to continue down the road of progress, free expression is non-negotiable.

Shameless plug: For a collection of essays on press freedom in Morocco, look no further than Talk Morocco’s December issue.