Monday, August 13, 2007
Internet Censorship
Many people know that the Internet is censored in many parts of the Middle East. In the UAE you sometimes come across websites, while clicking on links from one site to another, where you are welcomed by a page provided by EIM (Emirates Internet & Multimedia) informing you that it is blocked. For the most part it really isn't an issue as you can imagine the sort of things that are likely to be blocked, but yesterday while searching for some Al Ain photos I came across a strange one. Flickr (the popular photo sharing host) has now joined the list of blocked domains which I guess they have their reasons for. Just as a matter of interest I opened up You Tube (the popular video sharing host) to see if that was now blocked, but it is still accessible. I find this all a little puzzling since so many people utilise Flickr for uploading photos to share with family and friends while overseas (and it was something I was always going to do to share some of the photos that never made it on the Qatar blog). So now you can no longer share photos via Flickr but can upload videos of whatever you want via You Tube... weird.
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5 comments:
Hi and welcome to Al Ain. I just stumbled across your blog today.
Youtube actually was blocked for several months last year. It is widely speculated that Flickr is blocked here because of some pictures that were posted that an bigshot didn't want anyone to see, so rather than blocking just those photos, the whole site was blocked.
Here is one way you can deal with that.
Set up an ISP account back in your uncensored homeland. Then use a facility called TELNET to make a connection from your site in Al-Ain to your ISP back in Uncensoredburg.
Then, using a browser called lynx you can browse freely. The drawback is this is a text only solution. However, you can use lynx to download photos like any other file.
I think it was boing-boing blog some years ago that published a list of ways to dodge such firewalls. Mine is but one way.
Marcus, do you know other ways around the blocks?
I'm pretty sure that you can email your photos to flickr. You won't get to see them, but your friends and family will. If someone back home could access your account for you, they can find the email address that's specific to your flickr account.
Article about finding your way around blocked websites:
http://www.webstuffscan.com/2006/11/23/how-to-access-blocked-websites-top-10/
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