Committee to Protect Bloggers » UAE

Bypass Flickr Ban with Firefox Plugin

Curt — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 02:43:04 +0000

I discovered today via VentureBeat a Firefox plugin that works to circumvent Flickr bans without the use of a proxy.

According to Digital Inspiration, the plugin, called Access Flickr, was developed by Hamed Saber, an Iranian photographer who uses Flickr heavily.

The Access Flickr extension for Firefox substitutes the HTTP header parameters before sending a request to Flickr and therefore fools the government filters. This extension is only for accessing Flickr.com, it won’t work for other sites like YouTube or Orkut.

If you live in one of the many countries where Flickr is blocked and use a Firefox browser, you can download Access Flickr from the Mozilla site.

Flickr is, or has been, blocked in Iran, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and China. Can anyone attest as to whether the block is still in place in these countries? Have I missed any?

UAE Online Writer & Administrator Sentenced

Curt — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 18:18:22 +0000

According to HRInfo (via IFEX), the Ras Kheima court of the United Arab Emirates has sentenced writer Khalid El-Asly, of the site Majan, and the site’s head administrator, Muhammed Shouhi, to five months in prison. El-Asly and Shouhi were sentenced on criminal defamation charges.

Twitter Blocked in the UAE

Curt — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:58:27 +0000

Over the last several months, a number of bloggers in the United Arab Emirates have reported that Twitter has been blocked in their country. One just confirmed it is still blocked. Where else is Twitter blocked? What’s the fear, with a limit of 140 characters? I suspect it has to do with the quick dissemination of links and, more to the point, of plans. I suspect, though I don’t know, that the authorities see Twitter as a vehicle for quick organization, of say protests, but one which, unlike the cell phone, reaches a lot of people at once and creates an artifact of the event.