Breaking Digital Firewalls
Analyzing Internet Censorship and Circumvention in the Arab Worldav
Walid Al-Saqaf
Akademisk avhandling
Avhandling för filosofie doktorsexamen i medie- och kommunikationsvetenskap,
som kommer att försvaras offentligt fredagen den 5 juni 2014 kl. 13.15, HSL, Forumhuset, Örebro universitet
Opponent: Professor Naomi Sakr University of Westminster
London, Storbritannien
Örebro universitet
Institutionen för humaniora, utbildning och samhällsvetenskap 701 82 ÖREBRO
Abstract
Al-Saqaf, W. (2014) Breaking Digital Firewalls. Analyzing Internet
Censor-ship and Circumvention in the Arab World. Örebro Studies in Media and
Communication 17.
This dissertation explores the role of Internet censorship and circumven-tion in the Arab world as well as Arabs’ views on the limits to free speech on the Internet.
The project involves the creation of an Internet censorship circumven-tion tool named Alkasir that allows users to report and access certain types of censored websites. The study covers the Arab world at large with special focus on Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen.
This work is of interdisciplinary nature and draws on the disciplines of media and communication studies and computer science. It uses a pioneering experimental approach by placing Alkasir in the hands of willing users who automatically feed a server with data about usage patterns without storing any of their personal information.
In addition to the analysis of Alkasir usage data, Web surveys were used to learn about any technical and nontechnical Internet censorship practices that Arab users and content producers may have been exposed to. The study also aims at learning about users’ experiences with cir-cumvention tools and how such tools could be improved.
The study found that users have successfully reported and accessed hundreds of censored social networking, news, dissident, multimedia and other websites. The survey results show that while most Arab in-formants disapprove censoring online anti-government political content, the majority support the censoring of other types of content such as pornography, hate speech, and anti-religion material.
Most informants indicated that circumvention tools should be free of charge, fast and reliable. An increase in awareness among survey re-spondents of the need for privacy and anonymity features in circumven-tion solucircumven-tions was observed.
Keywords: Internet censorship, filtering, circumvention, Alkasir, Arab Spring, free speech, liberation technology, authoritarianism, freedom of expression. Walid Al-Saqaf, School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, Örebro University, SE-701 82 Orebro, Sweden. walid.al-saqaf@oru.se
