Censorship of Facebook

Censorship of Facebook has occurred because of the open nature of Facebook; several countries have interfered with or banned access to it, including Syria,^[1] China,^[2] Iran,^[3] Vietnam^[4] and the United Kingdom.^[5]

China

In Mainland China, Facebook was blocked following the July 2009 Ürümqi riots^[2] because Xinjiang independence activists were using Facebook as part of their communications network.^[6] Some Chinese users also believed that Facebook would not succeed in China after Google China's problems.^[7] The popular Renren social network (formerly Xiaonei) has many features similar to Facebook, and complies with PRC Government regulations regarding content filtering.

Australia

Facebook has 10 million Australian users - almost half the population - and requires people to state at sign-up that they are at least 13 years of age. But, because there is currently no way to formally enforce the age limit, in July 2011 Australia began considering giving parents access to their children's pages, requiring proof of age at sign-up, and increasing the age limit to 18.^[8]

Egypt

Facebook was blocked for a few days in Egypt during the 2011 Egyptian protests.^[9]

Mauritius

The Prime Minister of Mauritius, Dr Navin Ramgoolam ordered Internet Service Providers(ISPs) of the country to ban Facebook on immediate effect, on the 8th November 2007. The Prime Minister did not approve that someone impersonated him on Facebook. Access to Facebook was restored on the next day.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Morocco

On February 5, 2008, Fouad Mourtada, a citizen of Morocco, was arrested for the alleged creation of a faked Facebook profile of Prince Moulay Rachid of Morocco.^{[14][15][16][17][18][19][20]}

Iran

During the 2009 election in Iran, the website was banned because of fears that opposition movements were being organized on the website.^[3]

Syria

The Syrian government explained their ban by claiming the website promoted attacks on authorities.^[1][21] The government also feared Israeli infiltration of Syrian social networks on Facebook.^[1] Facebook was also used by Syrian citizens to criticize the government of Syria, and public criticism of the Syrian government is punishable by imprisonment.^[1] But most of the people reach to Facebook by internetebak.com which is a gate to banned websites. Syria claims that they do not want to have a prominent website created by a Jew to have presence in the country.

Vietnam

In Vietnam, an unauthenticated document supposedly issued by the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security dating August 27, 2009 instructing ISPs to block Facebook sparked shutdown fears. Access to Facebook became intermittent in mid-November and major ISPs were swamped by complaints. Some technicians confirmed being ordered by the government to block access to Facebook while government officials denied it.^[4]

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom on April 28, 2011, the day before the Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, a number of politically motivated Facebook groups and pages were removed or suspended from the website as part of a nationwide crackdown on political activity. The groups and pages were mostly concerned with opposition to government spending cuts, and many were used to organize demonstrations in a continuation of the 2010 UK student protests.^[22][23][24] The censorship of the pages coincided with a series of pre-emptive arrests of known activists.^[25] Amongst the arrestees were a street theater group planning a performance in opposition to the monarchy, whose members included a 66-year-old professor of anthropology,^[26] and five people dressed as zombies who were drinking tea in Starbucks at the time of the arrest.^[25]

References