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Iran has organized its own blogging competition, called "The Face of '89," in reference to the Persian calendar year 1389, which just ended on March 20. However, the rules of the competition stated that blogs that are blocked within the country - typically those that criticize the Iranian government - are not eligible to participate

While Iran's opposition and Green Movement has received a lot of attention for its speaking out against the government on blogs and other types of social media, conservative, Islamic and nationalistic blogs remain a prominent force on the Iranian Internet.

he Iranian government has been co-opting many of the online tools that they themselves abhor. In the wake of the June 2009 elections, for example, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, began his own Twitter account in both Persian and English.

The Sunday episode of Liman Yajroo Fakat (“For He Who Dares”), hosted by journalist Samir Elwafi, has been accused of breaching journalistic ethics in its coverage of Kamel Gadhgadhi, who was killed during a standoff with security forces February 4. The Ettounsiya station has been blocked from airing it again by the High Independent Board of Audiovisual Communication (HAICA), a newly-formed independent body regulating broadcast media, according to a HAICA statement released Tuesday.

The breaches mainly focused on the “lack of respect for the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and in particular Chapter 6 thereof, relating to the right to life” and the “lack of respect for pluralism of ideas and opinions,” according to the HAICA statement.

When addressing issues such as “violence incitement, white-washing, or calling for violence,” the journalist “should intervene to show that this violence or terrorism is rejected by Tunisian society, and that this presents a huge danger to the whole transition,”

 text messages buzzed between mobiles in quick succession, drawing woops of joy and thumbs up from astonished Syrians

"Perhaps the Saudis will have to build a whole village for Arab presidents once they run out of villas," joked a taxi driver

the usual babble of conversation was subdued as customers sat quietly but intently watching the TV broadcasting images of flames pouring from Egypt's ruling party's head office, a Soviet-era building much like many of those that house the state institutions in their own capital

For a Middle Eastern film-maker at Berlin, premiering a project outside competition or a special gala can be a major gamble: judging by the scant number of reviews Middle Eastern films have received during the past few years, most get overlooked in the media rush to cover the major titles. But contrary to recent years, and perhaps in a sign of changes come, the Middle Eastern selection at the 69th Berlinale is particularly intriguing, featuring experimental films, political allegories, documentaries and one rediscovered classic.

The most politically outspoken Turkish filmmaker working today, Alper rose to fame with his political allegories, Beyond the Hill (2012) and Frenzy (2015), which explored how the state uses different forms of fear tactics to force its citizens into submission. He then courted controversy with his public support for the Gezi protests of 2013 and his subsequent signing of the 2016 petition that called for the release of the academics who were rounded up for denouncing the Erdogan regime for its attacks on the Kurds. His actions, he insisted in several interviews, excluded him from state funding, pushing him to seek private investments for his latest endeavour (it is a Turkish-German-Dutch-Greek co-production). How far his new drama can push his critical political agenda remains to be seen.

Veteran Lebanese auteur Ghassan Salhab was last seen at the Berlinale in 2015 with his highly acclaimed narrative feature, The Valley. This year he returns to the Forum – which leans towards experimental film – with An Open Rose, an essayistic collage that uses the letters of Polish-German Marxist theorist and short-lived revolutionary leader, Rosa Luxemburg, from her time in prison to examine the militarisation of the Middle East in the 20th century.

A Saudi-owned television network has announced it will pull hugely popular Turkish dramas from its schedules, in what experts inside Turkey say is an attempt by Saudi Arabia's crown prince to pacify clerics already outraged by his push to modernise the kingdom.

the Arab world’s largest private broadcaster, MBC, was ordered to stop broadcasting often racy Turkish television shows. The MBC Group is Dubai-based and controlled by Saudi investors

growing tensions between Turkey and the Saudi Arabia-United Arab Emirates axis in the row over Qatar's support for, among other things, the Muslim Brotherhood

Attalah is the chief editor of Egypt’s only independent media outlet, with 124,000 followers on Twitter and 241,000 on Facebook. But Mada Masr isn’t alone. It’s among a growing number of independent Arabic digital outlets that are emerging as fresh sources of news in a region where tyrants and oligarchs have for decades controlled the media.

Some, like Al Jumhuriya (The Republic) and Syria Untold, are run by exiled Syrian intellectuals from Germany, Turkey and Lebanon. Others, like Daraj (Stairs) — with 135,000 followers on Facebook — are providing pan-Arab coverage from Lebanon, where most traditional newspapers are party-affiliated. Still others, like 7iber (pronounced “hiber,” and meaning Ink) and Sowt (Voice), are offering nuanced coverage to readers in Jordan despite the threat of censorship. 7iber has 120,000 followers on Twitter and 341,000 on Facebook.

grief, limited resources and threat of censorship haven’t dissuaded these outlets from revolutionizing Arabic-language journalism

they had shared and could recite the viral Facebook memes constructing an alternate reality of nefarious Muslim plots. Mr. Lal called them “the embers beneath the ashes” of Sinhalese anger

the forces of social disruption that have followed Facebook’s rapid expansion in the developing world, whose markets represent the company’s financial future. For months, we had been tracking riots and lynchings around the world linked to misinformation and hate speech on Facebook, which pushes whatever content keeps users on the site longest — a potentially damaging practice in countries with weak institutions.

Time and again, communal hatreds overrun the newsfeed — the primary portal for news and information for many users — unchecked as local media are displaced by Facebook and governments find themselves with little leverage over the company. Some users, energized by hate speech and misinformation, plot real-world attacks.

Egyptian television series that aired during the peak Ramadan season this year dramatically decreased by half from previous production volumes. Production restrictions and censorship in the most populous Arab country are on the rise, tough circumstances for the entertainment industry, exacerbated by a military-linked production company’s recent monopoly of soap operas. The move also raises concerns about whether a similar fate might be in the works for the film industry.

In late 2018, a memo circulated to industry professionals by state affiliate Egyptian Media Company (EMC) laid out a set of regulations making it virtually impossible for almost any production company asides from EMC sub arm Synergy Production to produce soap operas in the 2019 Ramadan season

“We have to understand why Synergy is gaining this much control…it’s also very clear that some series [this year] have an almost didactic direction, promoting particular ideas such as improving the image of police officers. Mandating which themes are to be discussed and which won’t be is not censorship, its indoctrination,” Aly Mourad, the CEO of Al Shorouk for Media Productions, tells Open Democracy. “I don’t think we’ve heard of this level of censorship since the time of [Former President] Nasser; it’s like we are going back 60 years in time.”

Egyptian authorities have forced a Guardian journalist to leave the country after she reported on a scientific study that said Egypt was likely to have many more coronavirus cases than have been officially confirmed.

She cited a study accepted for publication in the Lancet Infectious Diseases journal, which had analysed flight records, traveller data and infection rates to estimate that Egypt could have had 19,310 coronavirus cases by early March, with the lower end of the range about 6,000 cases. The Egyptian government’s official count at the time period covered by the data was that three people were infected.

On 17 March, Michaelson’s press accreditation was revoked. The Guardian offered the Egyptian authorities the chance to write a letter for publication rebutting its report or the Canadian study, but received no response to the offer.

In a virtual library found in Minecraft -— a game where users can build virtual worlds out of blocks and create their own storylines — users can access the work of journalists who have been killed, jailed or exiled by governments, including articles by Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The project, launched by Reporters Without Borders, design collective blockworks, advertising agency DDB Germany and production company MediaMonks, gives users access to articles banned in five countries that rank poorly on the nongovernmental organization's World Press Freedom Index: Egypt, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam.

Work in the library, launched Thursday to mark the World Day Against Cyber Censorship, is available in English and the original language in which the texts were written.

"Young people grow up without being able to form their own opinions. By using Minecraft, the world's most popular computer game, as a medium, we give them access to independent information,"

Egyptian lawmakers have called for stricter surveillance of women on video sharing apps after the arrests of a popular social media influencer and a well-known belly dancer on charges of debauchery and inciting immorality.

Instagram and TikTok influencer Haneen Hossam, 20, is under 15 days detention for a post encouraging women to broadcast videos in exchange for money, while dancer Sama el-Masry faces 15 days detention for posting “indecent” photos and videos.

“Because of a lack of surveillance some people are exploiting these apps in a manner that violates public morals and Egypt’s customs and traditions,”

“I just wanted to pitch-in but I wasn't sure how,” says the 37-year-old street artist, who made his name in Cairo during the 2011 revolution against Hosni Mubarak.

“If I would were in Cairo now, I would have taken to the streets with graffiti, like I did in 2011. I kept on wondering: how can I participate in a concrete and positive way, and make it useful?"

On the morning of 20 September, Ganzeer woke up anxious. During the next few hours he drew the image that has quickly come to define a new wave of protests against the sitting president. In the illustration, Sisi is dressed in a striped jacket and tie, but drawn as a cartoonish cat burglar.

Wrongful arrests, an expanding surveillance dragnet, defamation and deep-fake pornography are all actually existing dangers of so-called “artificial intelligence” tools currently on the market. That, and not the imagined potential to wipe out humanity, is the real threat from artificial intelligence.

Beneath the hype from many AI firms, their technology already enables routine discrimination in housing, criminal justice and health care, as well as the spread of hate speech and misinformation in non-English languages. Already, algorithmic management programs subject workers to run-of-the-mill wage theft, and these programs are becoming more prevalent.

Corporate AI labs justify this posturing with pseudoscientific research reports that misdirect regulatory attention to such imaginary scenarios using fear-mongering terminology, such as “existential risk.”

After decades of war, occupation and factional feuding, the Lebanese began suffering through compounding crises in 2019: fiscal, monetary, financial and economic. Since then, though they weren’t exactly living in paradise before, people in Lebanon have been “sinking” through one of the 10 (perhaps even three) worst collapses in the world since the 1800s.

At least 80 percent of Lebanese are poor. About 90 percent of the Syrians and Palestinians living in Lebanon, regardless of whether they are registered and how the Lebanese state and international organizations classify them, need (additional) assistance to cope with these crises. So, too, do hundreds of thousands of migrants from Asia and Africa who have also suffered while living in Lebanon.

Time and again, people have taken matters into their own hands because — much like people who have played by the rules, however warped in principle and skewed in practice — they have no good options. They have done so peacefully, such as when they protested in Beirut and across the country for months in late 2019 and early 2020. They have done so violently, such as when they’ve rioted, blocked roads, burned tires, or attacked business owners — from prominent bankers holed up in pilfered palaces, to gas station owners in north Lebanon, to shopkeepers in Beirut and the Bekaa Valley. They have done so spontaneously, or at least without political direction, while struggling day after day — like when a woman rammed her sports-utility vehicle into a pharmacy. They have done so as instruments of factional bosses, each adept at initiating, escalating, managing, or diffusing conflict as they deem necessary or useful — like when gunmen clashed in Khaldeh, a town south of Beirut, in August 2020 and August 2021, or fought in Beirut skirmishes in October 2021.

Although I was the target of this latest assault — no doubt because I regularly present critical reporting about Saudi Arabia and the UAE — the message to journalists across the Middle East is very clear: Don’t criticize the crown princes.

There has been a disturbing rise in gender-related harassment and threats against female public figures. The movement for women’s rights in Saudi Arabia has terrified the government, which has insisted on doling out reforms on its own terms while detaining the female activists behind the movement. Loujain al-Hathloul, the most prominent of the Saudi women campaigners, and several others remain behind bars.

Last Friday, a Turkish court began hearings on Post contributing columnist Jamal Khashoggi’s murder — a stark reminder that justice has still not been served two years on. Jamal himself once warned me to ignore and block these Twitter accounts. Even though the man widely believed to be responsible for Jamal’s murder may never be held to account, we must not let him and those who work for him imperil one of the fundamental pillars of a free society — a free press.