Should we support internet activists in the Middle East? | Marc Lynch - 0 views
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In many ways it was a pessimistic talk, which pushed back against expectations that new media technologies like blogs, Facebook or Twitter were going to radically change politics in the short or medium term. Over the longer term, there is a more real transformative potential, especially for the individuals who use the technologies. But analysts need to not be confused by the bright sparkling lights of fancy new technology or assume that it will have effects independently of the real lines of power and politics.
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politics come first, and that technology alone can have only a very limited impact in the face of authoritarian states. Where internet activists have had a significant impact in Arab countries, it has usually been tied to distinct political opportunities – such as the Kwuaiti royal transition or elections --- or else led by people who were activists first and used technology as a tool. New media did help activists in Egypt, Bahrain and elsewhere to punch well above their weight for a while... but eventually the regimes caught up and the real balance of power showed.
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I have a hard time thinking of a communications technology more poorly suited for organizing high-risk political collective action than Facebook.
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The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer: Bahraini's soccer defeat: A cautionary tale ... - 1 views
This Intifada Will Be Digital - The Black Iris - 0 views
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In these 15 years, we went from an era where mainstream media dominated the narrative, to an era where social media dominates it. This isn’t a time when the mainstream sees the online as a playful mechanism of democratized media (or an opportunity to present their brands as participatory), but a time when the mainstream is chasing down leads from what circulates online. And the region’s people now have the power to shape the narrative (whether we’ve fully realized it or not).
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Internet user growth in the region has gone up by 6,091.9% between 2000 and 2015
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Arabic is now the fourth biggest language on the Web after English, Chinese and Spanish
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differences of opinion - 0 views
Gaza: Journalist facing prison term for exposing corruption in Hamas-controll... - 0 views
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An investigative journalist who published a report revealing corruption within the ministry of health in Gaza is facing up to six months in jail, said Amnesty International, ahead of her appeal hearing tomorrow.
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Hajar Harb, a Palestinian journalist from Gaza, released an investigative report on al-Araby TV on 25 June 2016 highlighting that the ministry, which is run by the Hamas de-facto administration, was profiting by arranging illegal medical transfers out of the Gaza Strip for people who did not need treatment.
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“I was cursed with bad words, threatened with physical harm and even accused of being a collaborator with Israel by spreading rumours on Facebook by some doctors in Gaza,” she told Amnesty International.
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LGBT+ activists call on Facebook to move faster on hate speech - 0 views
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the Arab Network for Knowledge about Human Rights (ANKH), which has conducted the first survey of LGBT+ Arab Facebook users. More than 90% of the 450 Arabic speakers who responded had been targeted by hate speech on the platform, it found. A quarter of online hate speech in the Middle East and North Africa urged violence against LGBT+ people and 15% made direct threats. More than half the respondents reported feeling hopeless or depressed as a result and almost one in four had thought of self-harming.
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Activists say Facebook can be an essential tool for LGBT+ people in the Arab world, where many face an oppressive legal and social atmosphere, and vague laws against indecency are often used to criminalize sexual activity. Strong social stigma around homosexuality, amplified by conservative religious entities, has led to low acceptance of gay people across the region. LGBT+ activists in the area risk social exclusion, prison sentences, and violence by security forces, according to Human Rights Watch.
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Jillian York, director of international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, said enforcing policies would require vast investment in language skills to navigate slang and dozens of dialects. "(Social media companies) are really bad at defining and dealing with incitement and dehumanizing language," she said, adding that Facebook "have a dearth of content moderators in a number of languages where they should have a lot more".
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Dune: An accomplished escape into the realm of cinematic Arab appropriation - 0 views
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the most overriding issue, for this critic at least, is the total lack of significant Middle Eastern and North African representation in the cast despite the very clear influence of MENA, Islamic and Arab culture on the desert planet and this universe in the original book and this film. I’ve written before about the importance of Fremen characters being played by MENA actors not least because their language is mostly made up of Arabic words, like “Mahdi'' (‘the rightly guided one”) and “Lisan al Gaib” (“the voice from the outer world”), respectively. Though it's notable that jihad, the phrase frequently used in the book, has now been replaced with "crusade" and "holy war".
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One can easily observe the Bedouin and Amazigh inspiration behind this nomadic community on the page and the screen, through the Fremen’s penchant for Keffiyeh, group feeling unity and strength in their ability to survive in such a dangerous environment. These ideas, as well as the cyclical nature of dynasties and civilisations, were reflected in Tunisian sociologist, philosopher and historian Ibn Khaldun’s 14th Century book of Islamic History, “The Muqaddimah”, which underpinned much of Herbert’s sci-fi series.
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Jordan’s Wadi Rum and Abu Dhabi in the UAE provided the vast beauty and brutality of this fictional desert planet landscape. The pale, flat-roofed buildings of Arrakeen, the planet’s seat of power which, in the book, was transferred from the city of Carthag (sound familiar?) under Harkonnen rule, is reminiscent of North African architecture. If the overarching storyline about Imperialist colonisers stealing a powerful fuel from the native population doesn't remind you of a certain 20th Century Western conflict with the Middle East, the Knights Templar colour scheme of the Sardaukar certainly hints at a 12th Century one. A holy war no less!
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