Internet censorship in the Arab Spring

The level of Internet censorship in the Arab Spring was escalated. Lack of Internet freedom was a tactic employed by authorities to quell protests. Rulers and governments across the Arab world utilized the law, technology, and violence to control what was being posted on and disseminated through the Internet. The peoples of Egypt, Libya, and Syria witnessed full Internet shutdowns as their respective governments attempted to quell protests. In Tunisia, the government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali hacked into and stole passwords from citizens’ Facebook accounts. In Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, bloggers and “netizens” were arrested and some are alleged to have been killed. The developments since the beginning of the Arab Spring in 2010 have raised the issue of Internet access as a human right and have revealed the type of power certain authoritarian governments retain over the people and the Internet.

In the days leading up to 27 January 2011, an increasing number of websites were blocked. On 25 January 2011, the State Security Investigations Service, Amn El Dawla, ordered Twitter to be blocked. The following day, Facebook was shut down. On the night of 27 January 2011 the Egyptian government shut down the Internet in Egypt. SMS (Short Message Service) was also blocked. Popular Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) "backchannel" services such as WhatsApp, used on mobile devices was targeted as well. Renesys, a firm that monitors the Internet, reported that nearly all routes to Egyptian networks were taken down at the same time. It was also reported that the Egyptian government shut down official Domain Name Servers (DNS).

At the time the Egyptian government essentially controlled what information traveled across the country as well as in and out of the country via the Internet. To connect to foreign countries by way of the Internet, Egyptian information had to go through a small number of international portals. Mubarak and the government maintained tight control over these. While access to domestic Internet was still available this too suffered as a result of the shutdown as Egyptian networks were heavily dependent upon systems based outside of the country such as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo. The entire internal system was crippled. Jim Cowie, the chief technology officer of Renesys, remarked, “With the scope of their shutdown and the size of their online population, it is an unprecedented event”.

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