Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based non-governmental organization (NGO) that defends journalists and fights censorship, on Monday added the governments of Bahrain and Belarus to its 2012 list of Internet Enemies an inventory of governments worldwide that filter online content, restrict their citizens’ Internet access, track cyber dissidents and use the Web to spread pro-government propaganda while smearing opposition. These countries join other governments that the NGO has cited as cyber oppressors, including Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. Bahrain, whose population of 1.2 million people reside an area roughly the size of Washington, D.C., experienced an uprising last February as part of the Arab Spring protests throughout the Middle East and northern Africa
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Feed SubscriptionFBI Arrests Members Of LulzSec, Anonymous, Google Couples Mobile-PC Search History, China Is Facebook’s Biggest Asia App Partner
Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day. FBI Arrests Members Of LulzSec, Anonymous .
Read More »Google Earth, Foreign Wars, And The Future Of Satellite Imagery
DigitalGlobe, the firm that provides much of the imagery for Google Earth, is launching a next-generation satellite in 2014. However, the super-sharp images of the WorldView-3 aren't for Google and Bing Maps: They're going straight to the military and intelligence agencies
Read More »Syrians Upload Ramadan Massacre Footage Onto YouTube With Pen Cameras And Smuggled Tech
After Syrian troops began shelling civilian targets in the city of Hama, brave activists used smuggled phones and sympathetic allies abroad to upload grainy, graphic warfare footage onto YouTube. On Sunday Syrian tanks assaulted Hama and shelled civilian targets; at least 70 are confirmed dead and hundreds more seriously injured. Observers are calling it the " Ramadan Massacre " since it occurred on the eve of the Muslim holiday.
Read More »Facebook VP: "We Get Too Much Credit For The Arab Spring"
Facebook VP David Fischer explicitly downplayed the social network's role in Middle Eastern revolutions to an Israeli conference which included a tech industry who's-who. One of Facebook's highest-ranking international executives told a dignitary-packed Israeli conference that the website played a minimal role in the Arab Spring .
Read More »YouTube Video Of A Tortured, Murdered 13-Year Old Is Syria’s Modern Emmett Till Moment
Emboldened by the Arab Spring and social media, Syrian protesters are taking to the streets over smuggled YouTube videos that appear to show a 13-year-old boy who was physically and sexually tortured while in government custody. A graphic video of the corpse of a 13-year-old boy who appears to have been sexually and physically tortured by Syrian security officials has sparked international condemnation and riots across the country. The video (see still pic above) shows Hamza Ali al-Khatib, a resident of the southern village of Jiza, and appears to have been filmed by his family after they retrieved his corpse.
Read More »Social Media’s Sticky Role In Anti-Israel Uprisings
After a page calling for a mass march by Palestinians on the borders of Israel on May 15 was taken offline by Facebook, mirror sites with more than 3.5 million followers sprung up. Now Egyptians are preparing to march on Gaza and the Israeli military is threatening to crush protests. Will the so-called "Facebook Intifada" tip the Middle East into further turmoil
Read More »Syria’s Facebook Wars
Facebook shut down the Syrian military's official page, and Syrian Facebook users began encountering a primitive certificate-forging scam seemingly carried out by the government. See what happens when cyberwarfare comes to the formerly friendly Facebook. The “Facebook revolution” line has been used endlessly in the Middle East.
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