One of the dear Syrian bloggers is currently visiting Syria, he is sharing his response of his visit by posting via his cell phone on his blog. Even though I don’t' share his reading on many issues like his reading of the economic changes or his reading of Syrian racism towards the Iraqi refugees as motivated by "ignorance", that's totally an interesting read, but he reported a piece of information that has been causing me pain ever since I got back to Syria and it troubles me to ignore the problem altogether when reporting Blogger is unblocked! Sorry dear Sasa, Blogger is very blocked.
Ayman, Amre, Abu Fares, Yaser, Sami and I have blogged about the blocking of Blogger in Syria, or else we would have been imagining ourselves going through these proxies in order to access our blogs and Syria Planet blogs for couple months for myself and years for the rest.
There are many servers in Syria, the official server, the governmental, which blocks not only Blogger, but also Youtube, Google Translator, Unblocker, Spam the Blog, Israeli sites and opposition sites.
I am not sure what server Sasa is using, he could be using one of the private servers whose policy isn't similar to that of the government's. Private servers no longer available for public because the lines were already limited and all sold out.
So who is "Syria" in "Blogger Blocked in Syria"? Is it the official server or the private server? The governor or the merchant? The one who can jail you if caught accessing opposition sites, or the one who doesn’t give damn whether it is a pornographic or an opposition site?
When we say that blogger is blocked in Syria we mean the Syrian officials consciously blocks sites that are critical of the Syrian government's internal policies. We mean that seeking and republishing the information is blocked in Syria. We mean that people get arrested if they play the "go around" game when accessing these sites and publish certain comments.
A friendly note to our dear blogger Sasa since this is the second time he wrongly reports on the unblocking of Blogspot in Syria, we wish Blogger was unblocked, but the truth is, it's not even close.
If anything is unblocked in Syria, it's the bloggers' will to blog.
14 comments:
I could not have said it better Razan.
"Blogger is NOT blocked. I've been using other ways of getting on to Blogger, but when I saw Annie's comment I decided to have my regular attempt at typing in www . blogger . com boom - Blogger appeared."
I assume that an expert blogger on syrian affairs like Sasa would realize by now that the URL "www.blogger.com" is not blocked, but rather the domain "----.blogspot.com" where all the blogs are...
So, yes, blogger website was never blocked in the first place, you can post, and you can create a new blog, but the "blogs" themselves are blocked.
Welcome back dear Yazan!
you've been greatly missed.
hey marhaba, i don't know if u know this bog, it could b useful...http://committeetoprotectbloggers.org/
salam
Hey that's an excellent site!
thanks a lot, Manu!
"The one who can jail you if caught accessing opposition sites, or the one who doesn’t give damn whether it is a pornographic or an opposition site?"
Well Razan, As far as I know, even the private ISPs are sent a list of domains to be blocked, and it's almost updated on a daily basis! Sure you can tell that those "private" ISPs don't have the choice to refuse or to discuss this list, which is kept classified even inside the "private" company.
What sasa could be referring to ( and I'm only assuming ), is a so-called "real IP" Account, which you can obtain - even from the "governmental" Syrian Telecom ISP. The only prerequisite is that you already have an ADSL connection with them. It's a matter of filing an application, and signing a statement that you're not gonna use this for making phone calls.
I don't know who's responsible for reviewing the applications, but I never heard of someone who was denied the service.
The service allows you to connect directly to the internet, you don't have to go through any proxies.
Your arguments still stand. Because there are no remaining ADSL ports to sell, so the "no proxy" service can't reach the broad range of people.
Anyway, thanks for passing by my blog. Yours was always an inspiration to me.
Cheers!
Thanks for your input, DG, you've shed light on things I've missed.
welcome to the blogsphere!
wow. you guys have it tough. what a mixed up world. we are always given either this or that, and never both. makes me want to scream, or take a vow of silence for a year.
BIJ,
i've missed you man, hope you're doing well. I loved your paintings and your sensitivity.
Silence can be so loud sometime ;-)
Hmmm, I wanna wander a bit off the topic..and touch on the "comments" filtering that you have enabled on your blog. I do find that very "unlikely" or "weird" coming from a person who keeps calling for "freedom" of all its kinds.
True some words may be profane and therefore may need to be filtered. But those words can be deleted afterwards rather than having to approve ALL comments in your blog and empowering yourself over what people are allowed to say.
Once again, I find that contradictory...but then again, the two of us never had the same perspective on many issues...
Freedom does not equal "complete" allowance; freedom to me goes beyond that, freedom is inherently connected to human rights, not sure if it is the same case with comments. I do differentiate between productive comments and stupid ones. It depends on "why" one sensors her blog, it is not that I don’t publish comments that disagree with my arguments, as Syria blocks opposition sites, US blocks Al Jazeera EN, but I simply don’t publish stupid arguments. I am sure by publishing stupid comments doesn’t make me a freedom supporter, does it? ;-)
Very good. But what criteria do you use to decide if that "argument" is stupid or not? What if the commenter believes his argument is very objective rather stupid? The US blocks Al-Jazeera becuase they claim it convoys "stupid/terrorist" messages and "arguments" as per their criteria. So how is that any different? Mind you if you talk to any Syrian official he/she will say that all Syrian blogs are "useless" and "unproductive" thus they are blocked!
The thing I'm saying is that what you think is "unproductive" could be very productive by others and by giving yourself the right to unilaterally establish that is a bit like "governments" that you actually oppose.
I know what you mean Ihsan, and that's what i am saying; I do not delete "any" arguments, I do not delete "thoughts". This is my definition to stupid comments:
people post to praise the government or themselves about "hosting" the refugees not investigating about the conditions of this hosting. Golaniya said.
it must be hard, being the only intelligent person in syria mish hayk? Anonymous said.
This guy did not have "an argument", he just wants to swear the Syrian people projecting on them a Lebanese stereotype that they are stupid.
So briefly and as I said in the previous comment, I don’t care whether the commenter agrees with me or not, as long as she/he has an argument in the first place.
Non-argumentative comments are stupid for they reflect hatred ...etc. examples were given above.
Ihsan, if I may interject,
A blog, I feel, is a person's private place, even though that person has invited readers and commentators. Just because it is published does not necessitate that the blogger is automatically obliged allow everyone to publish their comments in their private space, i.e. their blog. If I publish a book, I can choose to include within its covers comments by supporters and detractors, or just supporters, or none at all, and detractors would still be able to publish criticism of my book elsewhere. The book remains my own space. Its exclusive point of view, and the point(s) of view that I choose to include in it, does not prevent anyone else from being free to express themselves elsewhere. This is also freedom, freedom to not include. It is not my responsibility to provide a space for all points of view; by having a blog does not make a blogger a responsible authority.
Razan: I see where you are coming from. While you showed a valid example, there may have been some or will be, for that matter, some that are not. The temptation is quit high when we give ourselves such a power; the power to silence those who oppose.
Ibn bint jbeil: I don't think a book is a good example for this matter. Even if it was, while a book has the views of the author, the author does not have the privilage to filter the critiques that will be later published in a newspaper or elswhere. Think of The post as the book, the author as the blogger, the newspaper and its critiques as the comments of the blog; the internet has brought them all together. In addition, blogs can be personal, but not this one, it's fairly "cause-based" blog, had it been personal, I would't have raised this point in the first place as I know that many Syrian bloggers do the same on their "personal" blogs.
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