No Poking in Damascus: Syria Bans Facebook November 26, 2007

Syria’s government has taken the audacious step of banning all access to Facebook.com from inside Syria, the Washington Post reported Friday:

Syrian users of Facebook said on Friday the authorities had blocked access to the social network Web site as part of a crackdown on political activism on the Internet…There was no comment form the government, which has intensified a campaign against bloggers, virtual opinion forums and independent media sites in recent months.

Why would the Syrian government take such a drastic step towards Internet censorship? (MSN’s Hotmail also is blocked regularly.)

Ammar al-Qurabi, head of the National Association for Human Rights, said little independent political content published by Syrians on the Internet is now tolerated.

“We have asked officials and they said Facebook could become a conduit for Israeli penetration of our youth, but the real reason for blocking the forum because it provides for criticism of the authorities,” Qurabi said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was head of the Syrian Computer Society before becoming president, and Syria’s internet presence is largely attributed to him. As of the banning, the official Syria network had 28,350 users.

The official reason given to bloggers about the Facebook ban was because it could become an “Israeli penetration” flashpoint? That’s the LIE? That’s what you cover UP with?

Not surprisingly, Facebook is also banned in Iran.

And what’s the upshot of all this? Facebook tourism in Lebanon is through the roof, with Syrians flocking to Beirut’s Internet cafe’s for unimpeded access to their Super Walls and Friends Lists. And don’t think PC and software manufacturers aren’t capitalizing as well, like Joshua Landis says:

However, don’t worry about the Syrian Facebook users. Syrian online content have become “un-censorable” in Syria. Tens of Syrian home-grown anti-censorship “cracking and Hacking” tools come pre-installed on any laptop/desktop PC bought in Syria. Most of the 28 thousand users will continue to access Facebook (same case with YouTube and BlogSpot).

These are the most technically savvy of Syrians anyway. In the last few days, I started receiving emails including lists of tens of methods for overcoming censorship of Facebook, sent from Syrian email addresses I do not recognize.

And now a whole new group of bloggers and Internet users either goes underground or goes to Lebanon.