Iraqi government shuts down Internet access in five provinces

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As violence spreads across Iraq, the government has moved to curb Internet access around the country.

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. The government issued the shutdown order to ISPs, asking providers to “shut down the Internet totally,” according to a leaked copy of the ministry’s memo, which Arab citizen media organization Social Media Exchange printed and translated.

The move mirrors other Internet shutdowns in the region. Days after protests broke out in Tahrir Square in early 2011, then–Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak ordered a shutdown that blocked web access in 88% of the country. In Syria, blocks of media sites like YouTube and Facebook were followed by a total Internet shutdown widely credited to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

The shutdown may be difficult for the Maliki government to carry out, as Iraq’s market for ISPs is unusually fragmented. There are hundreds of providers across the country, some of which offer service via satellite, limiting potential government control. By comparison, just 10 ISPs were responsible for 69% of web traffic in the US in 2011, according to digital analytics company comScore.

Still, web traffic originating in Iraq has been markedly reduced since the government ordered the access cuts. Renesys, which tracks Internet connectivity, observed two major, hours-long outages before the regional shutdown, first on June 9 and again on June 12, both of which were confirmed by sources as government-sponsored.

Renesys 12.06.14

The militant group ISIS may be particularly adept at using social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to broadcast its message and recruit new followers. The Atlantic’s JM Berger reports that the group has made use of a Twitter app called The Dawn of Glad Tidings, which it uses to disperse news and spread messaging via posts to users’ accounts on their behalf. ISIS used Twitter over the weekend to share pictures allegedly depicting the mass execution of Iraqi security forces in Tikrit. The Atlantic reports that there has been a dramatic increase in posts on the ISIS app since its introduction in April, reaching 40,000 in a single day as ISIS marched into Mosul last week—a volume that pushed its posts to the top of results for queries like “Baghdad.” Tikrit and Mosul, the nation’s second-largest city, are both located in states whose web access has been cut.

Shared by @_3lawi, via Social Media Exchange.

Shared by @_3lawi, via Social Media Exchange.

Shared by @_3lawi, via Social Media Exchange.

Shared by @_3lawi, via Social Media Exchange.

New Internet Monitor report: “Blogs as an Alternative Public Sphere: The Role of Blogs, Mainstream Media, and TV in Russia’s Media Ecology”

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Internet Monitor is delighted to announce the publication of “Blogs as an Alternative Public Sphere: The Role of Blogs, Mainstream Media, and TV in Russia’s Media Ecology,” the third in a series of special reports that focus on key events and new developments in Internet controls and online activity.

“Blogs as an Alternative Public Sphere,” authored by Bruce Etling, Hal Roberts, and Robert Faris, uses data collected from thousands of blogs, mainstream media, and TV sources to examine the role of Russian blogs within Russia’s media ecosystem:

Applying a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, we investigate whether Russian blogs represent an alternative public sphere distinct from web-based Russian government information sources and the mainstream media. Based on data collected over a one-year period (December 2010 through December 2011) from thousands of Russian political blogs and other media sources, we compare the cosine similarity of the text from blogs, mainstream media, major TV channels, and official government websites. We find that, when discussing a selected set of major political and news topics popular during the year, blogs are consistently the least similar to government sources compared to TV and the mainstream media. We also find that the text of mainstream media outlets in Russia (primarily traditional and web-native newspapers) are more similar to government sources than one would expect given the greater editorial and financial independence of those media outlets, at least compared to largely state-controlled national TV stations. We conclude that blogs provide an alternative public sphere: a space for civic discussion and organization that differs significantly from that provided by the mainstream media, TV, and government.

The full paper is available for download at SSRN: Blogs as an Alternative Public Sphere: The Role of Blogs, Mainstream Media, and TV in Russia’s Media Ecology

About Internet Monitor
Internet Monitor is a research project to evaluate, describe, and summarize the means, mechanisms, and extent of Internet content controls and Internet activity around the world. The project will compile and curate data from multiple sources, including primary data collected by the Berkman Center and our partners, as well as relevant secondary data. Internet Monitor will create a freely available online fact base that will give policy makers, digital activists, and user communities an authoritative, independent, and multi-faceted set of quantitative data on the state of the global Internet. The project will also produce annual reports that compile this information and provide expert analysis on the state of the global Internet. The Internet Monitor is a project of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. It is funded by the US Department of State and the MacArthur Foundation.

#IMWeekly: January 31, 2014

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China & Iran
Iran’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology announced this month that it is in talks with China’s Information Council about best practices for implementing a closed internal “National Information Network.”

Egypt
A new anti-terrorism law in Egypt, which will come into effect next month, enables the government to censor websites that “instigate terrorism.” Critics of the law worry that this framing could be applied to popular social media sites, including Facebook.

Netherlands
After The Hague ruled that blocking access to peer-to-peer file sharing websites such as The Pirate Bay had no measurable effect on piracy, the government of the Netherlands has decided to unblock these sites.

Russia
Mashable reports that the Russian government has ramped up surveillance in anticipation of the 2014 Winter Olympics, which begin in Sochi next Friday. The country’s System for Operative Investigative Activities (SORM) allows the Federal Security Service to access servers directly, and according to independent reports from within Russia, the government recently has been experimenting with Deep Packet Inspection as well.

#IMWeekly: December 16, 2013

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North Korea
The North Korean government began an effort to remove all Internet content and references on state-run sites related to Jang Song Thaek, the former top government and party official who was recently executed. Jang, who was the uncle of supreme leader Kim Jong Un, was one of the most powerful men in the country. Since his death, the state has effectively tried to erase him from the country’s official history.

United Kingdom
Amnesty International filed a legal claim against the UK government based on concerns that “the organization’s communications have been unlawfully accessed by the UK intelligence services.” Amnesty’s concerns first arose following the release of documents by Edward Snowden in June 2013 that revealed how UK authorities had access to information obtained by the US NSA’s previously secret PRISM program—the concerns were amplified when it was revealed the UK’s GCHQ had its own program, Tempora, that may have subjected people to blanket surveillance.  Amnesty’s claim is one in a series of recent legal challenges to spying that have emerged in the UK.

United States
Documents released by Edward Snowden revealed that American and British intelligence agencies have infiltrated globally popular online games, such as World of Warcraft and Second Life, in order to conduct surveillance and gather data on game users. The documents suggest that the spy agencies were concerned that terrorists might use the online games to communicate, exchange funds, and/or plot attacks.

#imweekly is a regular round-up of news about Internet content controls and activity around the world. To subscribe via RSS, click here.

2013 Internet Monitor Annual Report: “Reflections on the Digital World”

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Internet Monitor is delighted to announce the publication of Internet Monitor 2013: Reflections on the Digital World, our first-ever annual report. The report—a collection of essays from roughly two dozen experts around the world, including Ron Deibert, Malavika Jayaram, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Molly Sauter, Bruce Schneier, Ashkan Soltani, and Zeynep Tufekci, among others—highlights key events and recent trends in the digital space:

To mirror the collaborative spirit of the initiative, we compile—based on an open invitation to the members of the extended Berkman community—nearly two dozen short essays from friends, colleagues, and collaborators in the United States and abroad.

The result is intended for a general interest audience and invites reflection and discussion of the past year’s notable events and trends in the digitally networked environment. Our goal is not to describe the “state of the Internet” in any definitive way, but rather to highlight and discuss some of the most fascinating developments and debates over the past year worthy of broader public conversation.

Our contributors canvass a broad range of topics and regions—from a critique of India’s Unique Identity project to a review of corporate transparency reporting to a first-person report from the Gezi Park protests. A common thread explores how actors within government, industry, and civil society are wrestling with the changing power dynamics of the digital realm.

The full report and individual chapters are available for download on our Annual Report page.

An interactive, full text version of the report is available on H2O, where you can remix, share, excerpt, and comment on each essay: H2O: Internet Monitor 2013.