Syrian activists to Egyptian protesters: We are all Twitter!

Hackers took control of the pro-government newspaper website "Baladna" (Our Country) and changed the news agenda .

SMN No. 12, January 27, 2011

Syrian bloggers and cyber activists have tried to help Egyptian activists as they protested against the Cairo regime this week.

As well as spreading the latest news about the protests and sending encouraging messages – as they did during the recent Tunisian revolution – they also tried to provide practical support.

A Syrian cyber activist told Damascus Bureau that, feeling “jealous” about the events in Egypt, he had tried to participate by suggesting logos and slogans for the Egyptian protesters and by distributing news through Twitter.

When Twitter was blocked by Cairo, the activist helped Egyptian protestors to break the block through remote technical support.

“We in Syria have more experience in opening blocked websites than the Egyptians, so I sent different proxy programmes and links to many Egyptian activists who distributed them to others,” he said.

Syrian bloggers dedicated their websites to publishing the latest news about the protests in Egypt.

After social websites like Twitter were blocked in Egypt, and some Arab media instituted a blackout on news from Egypt, Tabasher Blog wrote on January 25, that “I will open my blog to publish the news from the Egyptians, and for them,” adding, “We and our blogs are Twitter and Facebook and even more.”

Also, Syrian hackers targeted the website of the pro-government Syrian newspaper Baladna for several hours, and posted on its page the latest news of the Egyptian protest under the title “We will not allow the media blackout about what is going on in Egypt; here are some headlines about what is going on there.”