Warnings Over Open Access to Facebook in Syria

SMN No. 14, February 16, 2011

Activists have warned Syrian internet users to take precautions when accessing social networking sites after the recent lifting of a ban on sites such as Facebook.

A range of sites including YouTube and blog hosts such as Blogspot have been blocked by Damascus but were re-opened recently. The new access to them appears to be a concession following the events in Tunisia and Egypt where popular uprisings ousted authoritarian regimes, which prompted calls for Syrians to start a similar revolution.

A Syrian human rights activist who preferred to remain anonymous told Damascus Bureau that “this step could be seen as part of the repercussions the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisian had inside Syria,” but said that it was impossible to be sure of the true motive for the lifting of the ban, “especially since dozens of other sites are still blocked in Syria and the authorities have not taken any other steps to open up the country”.

Nonetheless, the activist added that the new move should help more young people use social networking sites and assist Syrians in both using such websites more effectively and also “to neutralize and exclude the extremist voices which call for hatred”.

However, a Syrian internet activist and expert in digital security said that it was essential for users inside Syria to continue using proxy and encryption software in order to protect themselves from government surveillance. He also advised all Syrians to apply the “https” option recently made available by Facebook, which makes the site secure.

Just a few days after it was unblocked after being banned for more than three years, Facebook ranked third among the sites accessed from Syria, according to the Internet ranking website Alexa. According to the internet activist, this shows that many of those who were using Facebook through a proxy before are now accessing the site directly.