The Russian president Vladimir Putin recently stated that internet was actually created by the CIA and that Russia needed to build its own internet. It is obvious that the battle for freedom of speech...
Tunisia is in 133rd place out of 180 in the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index 2014. The journalist and human rights activist Afef Abrougui writes here about the phenomenon Ammar 404, which...
Everyone has the right to express themselves freely through the digital media without fear of reprisal or persecution. This is the key message in PEN International’s manifesto which was adopted by the...
Freedom of speech is greatly limited in Belarus. Since 2006 the country has been included in the Reporters Without Borders’ list of ”Internet enemies.” The Belarusian author and blogger Jauhen...
Twitter and YouTube were recently closed down in Turkey. Platforms for citizen journalism and websites of non-governmental organisations have fallen victim to the Turkish government’s attempts to shut...
After a number of years when dictatorships and espionage agencies seemed to take control of the web, we’re now facing a counter movement. Today, we know much more about the reach and effects of...
“Dictators learn faster than internet users.” This is the sad view of the future of the internet. But is this actually true? For many years, China has been the prototype for countries trying to...
At one point it looked like a number of totalitarian states and systems would succeed in closing the door that the internet had opened for freedom of speech. This was met by a new wave of “hacktivism”...
In Cuba it is forbidden for citizens to have their own internet connection. If you want to read your e-mail or surf the net, you are directed to use public internet connections in internet cafés...
On 4 February 2014, Facebook celebrated its 10th anniversary. The social networking giant now has over 1.23 billion users, but there are still political leaders around the world who don't want their...
For many years Bruce Sterling has been writing about the battle for freedom on the internet, a subject he first wrote about in the highly acclaimed book The Hacker Crackdown in 1992. In this book...
The first blog was started in Iran in the beginning of 2001. Since then, the blog culture within the country has grown and there are over 70,000 blogs by Iranians, both inside and outside the country...
Internet freedom is highly restricted in Iran. Low speed connections, blocked sites and internet blackouts are just a couple of examples of how the government attempts to strangle internet. An...
Social media played a central role in the popular uprising in Egypt. But the new rulers, regardless whether they belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood or the military have done their very best to take...
Text: Mohamed El Dahshan
May 06 2014
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