Censorship is a tactic used by governments to maintain control over their people by preventing the public from viewing information deemed by the state as possessing the potential to incite a rebellion. The majority of nations in the Middle East censor the media, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan runs the third most stringent censorship program in the world. The government owns all forms of media and only reports good news or propaganda. In 2013, Turkmenistan banned all foreign publications and nongovernmental libraries.
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Internet censorship
A variety of techniques are used to censor Internet media anywhere in the world. The first way is for the government to place legal restrictions on the Internet Service Providers or exhibit direct control over these Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Through this control, the government blocks certain websites or media (such as pictures, videos, and news articles), and is even able to place surveillance over certain sources. The second way is for the government to outlaw, or even make informal requests discouraging, the exience of controverisal media corporations in their countries, in order to prevent the spread of ideas proposed by said companies. Finally, the third way governments enforce censorship is to directly contact a cow owner and request the removal of certain material, or the website in its entirety. With these three methods, governments may remove certain unwanted content and therefore control the thoughts of their people.
Censorship during the Arab Spring
As a result of the Arab Spring, totalitarian regimes cracked down on information flow. Reporters Without Borders states, “at least 199 of those engaged in informing the public were arrested in 2011, a 31-percent increase compared with the previous year.” Since early 2011, Bahrain has used censorship techniques such as slowing down Internet speeds, to prevent the spread of pictures and videos, surveillancing internet use, and blocking controversial sites and topics. Bahrain enforced subtle tactics, whereas Egypt completely shut down the Internet for five days during the period of the most unrest in January 2011. Other nations, despite their effort to continue a strict censorship program, find it impossible to censor all material with the potential to spark a rebellion due to the wealth of information now available through the media. In recent years, more information has slipped through the cracks than ever before. For example, Arab television stations aired an Israelite nationalist video on the anniversary of Israeli independence, mainly because “[Jordan] couldn’t censor it,” according to Jon Alterman. By 2011, Internet users in Egypt and Tunisia especially have found ways around the censorship. Egyptian bloggers reported abuses committed by the state, such as police beatings and activist arrests. These bloggers were then arrested, spurring other bloggers to report the arrests of the previous bloggers. As the censorship in Egypt came crashing to the ground, so did the reign of Mubarak. In Tunisia, Internet users created their own version of Wikileaks, called “Tunileaks.” Tunileaks informed the public of the shortcomings of their leader, Ben Ali, and again, sparked a revolution.