February
20, 2011
On February 8, 2011 Syrian internet users affirmed that
Facebook and YouTube were again available in Syria. The removal of the
five-year ban looked like an appeasement measure aimed at relaxing the political
and social environment in the country. Presumably, the government wanted (and
still wants till today) to stave off the unrest emerged after the recent political
events in Tunisia and Egypt.
At the beginning of February, President Bashar al-Assad
openly said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that he wanted to
continue with the political reforms and that in 2011 he had the targets to initiate
municipal elections, grant more power to N.G.O.s and pass a new media law.
The ban — related to Facebook, YouTube and other social
networks — had been introduced three years ago (Facebook was blocked in
November 2007) as a move to reduce hostile political activism in the country. Lifting
the ban seems to be an important step toward a more democratic Syria, but — as
human rights advocates pointed out — it will be important to closely monitor the
events of the coming weeks. In fact, lifting the ban could now permit the Syrian
government to better monitor people and political activities through social networks websites.
Facebook, for instance, requires its users to disclose their real identities and not to use
false or anonymous accounts.
Debbie Frost, a spokesperson for Facebook explained that
Facebook was not thinking of modifying its terms of service in relation to
those countries where users may be alarmed by revealing their real name for
security reasons. Susannah Vila, with Movements.org, a non-profit organization
devoted to supporting grassroots digital activists around the world, said that
“while access to social media sites presents an opportunity for Syrians to
better mobilize one another, it also makes it easier for the government to
identify activists and quash protests”. Recently,
in relations to Sudan there was such a kind of worries.
In Tunisia, in December and January, protesters used the
internet to gain support for their movement. They broadened the influence of
their message and eventually they were successful in toppling Ben Ali’s
government. Once the protests started in Egypt, some Syrian opposition groups
created a Facebook page called "The Syrian Revolution 2011" (http://www.facebook.com/Syrian.Revolution)
while at the same time they initiated a Twitter campaign whose target was to
invite people to join together for the “Day of Rage” rallies against the
President al-Assad in the first week of February (on February 20, 2011
the Facebook members of this group are 21,636).
In the last three years, Syrians have been successful in using
Facebook and other banned websites thanks to proxy servers that were able to circumvent
the Syrian government’s firewall. Proxy servers vehicle internet requests
through servers located outside the country. In this way they bypass the
government’s firewall and hide I.P. addresses. Now, Syrian netizens could be
attracted by the possibility of accessing the internet through Syrian servers (and
not proxy servers), which permit the government to easily monitor their online
activities.
“We are all using it (Facebook) anyway — so I don’t see what
difference it makes,” said one Facebook member, Ahmad. Technically, the Syrian
firewall is extremely omnipresent and it blocks, in addition to Facebook and Co., many
other websites like Amazon, Blogspot and Israeli newspapers.
Facebook’s Debbie Frost said that Facebook always monitored
some internet traffic from Syria, but honestly not the average number of
internet users whom a country like Syria should have. Immediately after the lifting
of the ban, Facebook did not notice a significant increase in its traffic in
Syria. It’s true that for people it could take hours or also days before
getting full internet access. On the other side, there is a very different
representation of the current situation by YouTube. The graph below clearly shows that after February 8
and 9, 2011, Syria’s YouTube traffic spiked hugely passing from values
between 0 and 3 to values between 20 and almost 100 (97.37
on February 14) . These values are units of Google’s scale, which runs from 0
to 100.
“This is great news” said Mazen Darwish, the president of
the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (a Syrian organization
founded in December 2004 and since December 2007 affiliated with Reporters
Without Borders). “After what happened on the 4th and the 5th
the authorities now know that the Syrian people are not the enemy. We are not
stupid and we know how to use these sites with intelligence …. This is not just
about Facebook; this is about a change in the mentality that the population
needs somehow to be controlled. Things are changing. I hope this is the first
step in a broader reform program”, he added.
Lifting the ban in Syria was cheered in Washington,
although there are still concerns related to the relevant restrictions on the
freedom of speech and the freedom to assemble. Mr. Alec J. Ross, senior advisor
for innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Mr. Ross organized a
delegation of American business I.C.T. leaders to Syria in June 2010. For more information about this event please see: BACCI, A., U.S. Trade Delegation to Syria, June 2010) openly declared
that Syrian citizens should immediately understand the risks of using Facebook and
the other websites as if they were in a country with no restrictions on the freedom
of speech.