Here’s some free advice to the US State Department; trying to keep Twitter or Facebook or other social networking sites alive inside dictatorships is a fine task but have you stopped for a minute and wondered what citizens think when your own government has backed these brutes? The State Department has been working furiously and…
Showing all posts tagged internet
Not a Twitter revolution
Parvez Sharma: #Egypt became strong only AFTER #internet etc died 80 million people? 1% have smartpnones THE POOR DONT TWEET They walk into bombs & bullets
People of Gaza and Egypt need freedom from our thug
Burn, baby, burn. Israel and America are scurrying for some kind of response to the Egyptian uprising. The poor lambs. What on earth will they do if a compliant dictatorship actually falls? For example, the siege on Gaza may well be about to change. I hope. And so do the people of Gaza. They deserve…
Who is providing the handy help for Cairo block the web?
Vultures (thank you Timothy Carr): The open Internet’s role in popular uprising is now undisputed. Look no further than Egypt, where the Mubarak regime today reportedly shut down Internet and cell phone communications — a troubling predictor of the fierce crackdown that has followed. What’s even more troubling is news that one American company is…
What Egyptian uprising says about the desperate desire for freedom
The Arab world is shaking. Crowds are seething. Anger is everywhere. Egyptian protesters are showing America, Israel and Mubarak what they think of them. Some of the latest reports here and here. From Al-Jazeera: The internet has been central to these protests, though impossible to tell how important. In an age of mass surveillance, it’s…
Egyptians, we stand with you
Feel the fear in Israel and America. The Arab world is rising up. Decades of dictatorships are under threat. Tel Aviv and Washington have created a nexus of bigotry to support their goals. And now what do they have? Mass anger. Nice work. US Vice President Joe Biden talks about Mubarak being “moderate” and a…
No wonder China will one day rule the world
Wow: China’s online population rose to 457 million in 2010 as use of mobile phones to surf the Web spread rapidly, an industry group reported Wednesday. China’s population of Internet users – a group more than 50 per cent larger than the whole U.S. population – grew 19 per cent in 2010 over the previous…
Google opens its heart a little in the Islamic Republic
During research for my book The Blogging Revolution, a great deal of time was spent examining just what companies such as Google actually do in Iran. The company has posted the latest information: During the protests that erupted in Iran following the disputed Presidential election in June 2009, the central government in Tehran deported all…
Repeat after me; there was no Wikileaks revolution in Tunisia
Jillian York asks the ever-eager Western press to take a long, cold shower and actually ask Tunisians themselves if the internet/Twitter/Facebook/Wikileaks seriously contributed to the downfall of President Ben Ali. In a word, no.
The Supreme Leader may have nimble fingers
Is the Iranian regime trying to be a hypocritical laughing stock? A Twitter account believed to belong to Iran‘s supreme leader has triggered controversy among Iranians whose own access to social networking websites remains blocked. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the man who has the final word in Iran, has come under intense criticism from Iran’s many…