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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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Why is the State Department Tweeting in Arabic? A Conversation with Dana Shell Smith

Recently, the US Department of State implemented an Arabic-language account on Twitter, @USABilAraby. My initial reaction was one of pleasure, but after a bit of thinking, I became curious as to why State would think Twitter to be the appropriate platform for such engagement; after all, despite increasingly large numbers of Twitter users across the […]