As their government adjusts its Internet filters, raising some barriers and lowering others in a bid to contain a violent Sunni insurgency, Iraqis are leaning on alternative technologies to maintain access to online services.
In this week's #IMWeekly: One-fifth of websites are blocked in the United Kingdom, the NSA is ruled within bounds, and Iraq flips around its filtering protocol to better target ISIS.
In this week's #IMWeekly: Australia announces a controversial surveillance bill, Iraqi netizens find a way around internet blockages, and Russia targets extremism on Twitter.
A new report from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto takes a look at Internet monitoring in Iraq. Since violence led by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) broke out in the country several weeks ago, the government has responded by cutting Internet access, first by blocking websites including Twitter and Facebook and then, on June 15, issuing orders for a total Internet shutdown in five of the nation's 19 provinces. The Citizen Lab tests the filtering methods, finding that blockage lines up with the Ministry of Communications' decree, but does not block sites affiliated with ISIS.
In this week's #IMWeekly: Twitter frees up "blasphemous" tweets in Pakistan, an Internet shutdown in Iraq, and one of the largest DDoS attacks ever in Hong Kong.
Iraq’s Ministry of Communication issued orders Sunday for a total Internet shutdown in five of the country’s western and central provinces, where violence from a Sunni insurgency led by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is particularly intense.
This comes two days after access to Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube as well as communication platforms like Skype, Whatsapp, and Viber was cut across the nation.