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Twitter Trolling as Propaganda Tactic: Bahrain and Syria

First, a note: I’m no expert on either of the two countries that are a focus of this piece, nor do I intend to be comprehensive in my analysis. I know a bit more about Syria than I do about Bahrain, having studied its history closely and traveled there, but nonetheless, I intend purely to […]

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West Censoring East: Or Why Websense Thinks My Blog is Pornography

Today, the OpenNet Initiative has released a paper, authored by Helmi Noman and myself, enumerating the widespread use of American- and Canadian-built filtering technologies in the Middle East and North Africa.  The paper, entitled “West Censoring East: The Use of Western Technologies by Middle East Censors 2010-2011“, looks closely at Websense, McAfee’s SmartFilter, and Netsweeper […]

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Qaddafi’s View of the Internet in Tunisia

In a speech today (full transcript in Arabic here), Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi addressed the Tunisian people. Amira al Hussaini noticed–and translated–a bit of the speech dealing with the Internet: حتى أنتم إخواني التوانسة ، ربما أنكم تقرؤون في الكلينكس هذا ، والكلام الفارغ في الإنترنت . وهذا الإنترنت ، الذي أي واحد أهبل ؛ […]