YouTube Blocked in Syria
By Curt on Aug 30, 2007 in Syria, YouTube, Blocked
YouTube is blocked in Syria. Unlike Iran with Facebook, there is no question that it is an official ban-and-block by the Syrian government. According to Ammar Abdulhamid of Tharwa and Hamsa and a fellow at the Brookings Institution, the nature of the block is clear.
There is a report in Arabic on blocked sites that clearly identifies YouTube as one of the blocked sites. Also, there are several public reports referring to directives from the Syrian Ministry of Information prohibiting Syrians from publishing any webposts on an anonymous basis and threatening legal actions against all Syrian sites that publish anonymous reports.
This led me to ask a specialist in Internet filtering a question which I will ask again here.
In addition to ascertaining which countries block which kinds of speech on which type of platforms (blogging, online sites, etc.), can we also determine which specific proprietary instruments are blocked? By this I mean specific products and services, such as YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Blogger and so on.
If you know part of the answer, let us know. Do you know of a specific product that is blocked or banned in a specific country?
Update: The rationale for the blocking YouTube in Syria is apparently the posting there of a satirical video featuring the First Lady as Marlyn Monroe, Seven Year Itch-style, with her dress blown up, bidding farewell to a foreign dignitary at the airport with her husband.
sami | Sep 3, 2007 | Reply
This news has not be confirmed
Curt | Sep 4, 2007 | Reply
In fact, it has been. (Sami is the advocacy director of Global Voices.)
CWW | Oct 7, 2007 | Reply
I am an American in Syria studying Arabic.
Up until recently I have been been able to use youtube at various internet cafes in Syria. In fact, I believe I used it yesterday. When attempting to visit youtube today, I was automatically redirected to SyriaTel’s website.
By the way, SyriaTel is the largest mobile telephone company in Syria, which is also owned by the Syrian President’s brother-in-law, Rami Makhlouf.
They can track it | Nov 19, 2007 | Reply
They blocked FaceBook now
Man,what good the internet is anymore,
i gotta find myself a unblocker proxy
Beatriss | Feb 21, 2008 | Reply
Government always blocks some services as YouTube, VoIP, MSN etc. I use VPN tunnel to prevent that disgusting thing. I used lots of VPN services but now, i can say that the www.strongvpn.com service is the best one! Cause lots of benefits it gives to a client.