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Syria bans Facebook
Social networking site no longer available in Syria
Popular social networking website Facebook is no longer available to users in Syria, according to the latest reports by Syrian internet users.
The site is first thought to have become unavailable last Friday, with some observers such as women's rights advocate Dania al-Sharif commenting to Reuters that this was due to government fears of the site's ability to allow and host so-called ‘virtual societies'.
However other bloggers and international observers have instead suggested that the real reason for what appears to be the ban of the site, is that it has been subject to a spam e-mail campaign by anti-Syrian activists.
According to Joshua Landis' Syria Comment blog, "A couple of days before the blocking took place (on Nov 15th), a systematic vulgar spam campaign was launched in the Syria Network (with avatars resembling Israeli flags and ridiculing Syrians)".
At the time of writing, there were 28,585 members of Facebook's Syrian network (equating to just 1.9% of the 1,500,000 internet users operating in Syria ). Messages along the lines of those suggested above were clearly visible on Facebook's Syria Network page.
Mimz
Hi well ya Facebook is banned in Syria, BUT everyone in Syria can still use Facebook if they use the smart way like proxy changing and all these stuff, so thats it, all have installed the program in their pc's and is now using FB again, also Youtube which is also banned, and what i have to say is there is NO freedom of speech or opinions here in Syria, totaly lame, considering im not Syrian but have a hole bunch of friends that agree with me, T.C
salem
Not only is Facebook blocked , we have a plenty of social web sites like Hotmail and Islamic sites like islamway blocked too. On the other hand web pages containing explicit content are open. This is Syria.
Michael
Hey ... I think there is something worng over here, I have got syrian friends still online on face book till today morning. Maybe the site was down for couple of hours on friday then everything back to normal...
Cheers !