MENA, Media, and Freedom

Jillian York on MENA, Media, and Freedom
29 November 2011 – Aslan Media

Al Jazeera English’s The Stream co-host Ahmed Shihab Eldin, described Jillian C. York as “[this] generation’s go-to person for Internet neutrality.”As the Director of Freedom of Expression at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, York has worked passionately on digital activism, Internet privacy, and freedom of expression online in the Middle East and North Africa.

This year’s turmoil in the Mideast and the still burgeoning Arab Spring have kept York busy, and brought new awareness to the power of digital media and online activism. York noted that “it’s hard to generalize” across the region, and pointed out the varying levels of Internet penetration in different MENA countries. For instance, Egypt has about 25% Internet penetration while Libya has about 5%. This makes for quite different populations; and though driven by similar objectives of democracy and political reform, this online cultural variance makes each country’s “spring” experience unique.

Nonetheless, the world witnessed how social media amplified the voices of protesters in Egypt and Tunisia and accelerated the fall of the Mubarak and Ben Ali regimes, respectively. E-activism has evolved dramatically over the course of the past year in both these countries. For instance, in Egypt, a number of protesters who were crucial to the momentum of the critical mass that drove Mubarak out of office have opted for being active solely on the Internet, rather than taking to the streets. This phenomenon is known as slacktivism. In Tunisia, where the first free and fair elections were just held after the ouster of Ben Ali, 30% Internet penetration was enough to organize mass protests. But while these protest movements have been pushed forward by online activism, York notes “there’s not a whole lot of great use of the Internet for political representation.”

Syria’s revolution has yet to come to a resolution. Syria’s Electronic Army—a clique of hackers loyal to the Syrian regime that floods a variety of Facebook pages and defaces and disables various websites—is, says York, “ the biggest [coordinated cell of hackers in a country] I’ve ever seen!” She continued, “ the intention is to attack the website of any organization or agency that has spoken out in favor of the Syrian opposition. Because they’re so distributed, they’re unclear about their targets.”

When asked whether the efforts of companies such as Facebook and Twitter, not to mention that of the U.S. government, to protect Internet freedom of expression and privacy online are up to acceptable standards, specifically in light of a politically volatile Middle East, York remarked, “I have less to be critical of now than say 8 months ago. The Arab spring has taught [social media] companies a lot of lessons.” She went on: “Twitter and Google’s speak2tweet was an interesting instance of trying to adapt to a local need. They’re doing more than they were a year ago…[but] the push to end online anonymity is a huge problem. Facebook and Google+ are not listening at all when it comes to protecting the need for anonymity…I understand that they want to make a certain type of community but they’re not listening to the needs of international and domestic users. It doesn’t feel like they’re thinking internationally yet.” …more