Strong government control of Internet content
Reporters Without Borders includes Tunisia in the country list of 'Enemies of the Internet' together with North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Turkmenistan [Wikipedia]
Excerpts from the Reporters without Borders report: - Deemed a potential threat to the country’s stability and image, the Internet is the target of pernicious censorship. Very strict filtering, opponent harassment and Big Brother-like surveillance enable the authorities to keep tight control over the news media.
- Bandwidth is owned by the Tunisian Internet Agency (TIA), under the control of the government, which imposes strict filtering. Both URL addresses and keywords are blocked. All of the country’s 12 state-owned or private Internet access providers are controlled directly or indirectly by the regime. Filtering is performed via SmartFilter and Websense software programs at the network entry level.
- Authorities claim to target only pornographic or terrorist websites. However, censorship applies above all to political opposition, independent news, and human rights websites. Websites now inaccessible include those of Tunisnews, Nawaat, the Progressive Democratic Party (PDPinfo.org), the “Al-Nahda” (Renaissance”) movement, Tunisonline, Assabilonline, Reporters Without Borders, and Al-Jazeera in Arabic. Al-Jazeera in English, however, is still available.
- Social networks and other participating websites whose mobilization /whose potential as a mobilization tool terrifies the regime are targeted when their users behave too boldly. Facebook was blocked in August 2008, raising a wave of general protests within Tunisian society. As a result, President Ben Ali ordered it to be unblocked. Interestingly, rich and fashionable young people as well as people close to the government use it regularly. The President’s own page has over 120,000 fans. However, frequent pirating of dissidents’ Facebook pages has been observed, as well as blockings of specific groups such as one created to call for the release of independent journalist Taoufik Ben Brik.
- When an Internet user attempts to access a prohibited website, the following automatic error message appears: “Error 404: page not found,” without displaying the familiar “Error 403” more typical of a blocked site. Users thus do not know if the site has been blacklisted, or if it is simply a technical glitch. This strategy equates to a disguised form of censorship.
- Private Internet connections via satellite are prohibited for individuals via land-line telephones. In order to more closely monitor dissidents, users keep the same IP address regardless of whether they are connecting from their homes or from their workplaces. Email boxes are also under surveillance.
- Cybercafés have not escaped this oppressive surveillance: instructions about which websites should not be visited are posted on the walls. Managers are responsible for the content viewed by their customers, who usually need to show their IDs. All cybercafés were ordered to use the Publisoft software in 2009, several months before the elections, so that the authorities could spy on users and their online behavior.