Ten years ago today, 26-year old Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest over injustice and state marginalization, igniting mass uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and other countries across the Middle East and North Africa.<\/p>\n
As we mark the 10th anniversary of the Arab Spring, we, the undersigned activists, journalists, and human rights organizations, have come together to voice our frustration and dismay at how platform policies and content moderation procedures all too often lead to the silencing and erasure of critical voices from marginalized and oppressed communities across the Middle East and North Africa.<\/p>\n
The Arab Spring is historic for many reasons, and one of its outstanding legacies is how activists and citizens have used social media to push for political change and social justice, cementing the internet as an essential enabler of human rights in the digital age.<\/p>\n
Social media companies boast of the role they play in connecting people. As Mark Zuckerberg famously wrote in his 2012 Founder\u2019s Letter<\/a>: \u201cBy giving people the power to share, we are starting to see people make their voices heard on a different scale from what has historically been possible. These voices will increase in number and volume. They cannot be ignored. Over time, we expect governments will become more responsive to issues and concerns raised directly by all their people rather than through intermediaries controlled by a select few.\u201d<\/p>\n Zuckerberg\u2019s prediction was wrong. Instead, more governments around the world have chosen authoritarianism, and platforms have contributed to their repression by making deals with <\/a>oppressive heads of state; opening doors to dictators<\/a>; and censoring key activists, journalists, and other changemakers throughout the Middle East and North Africa, sometimes at the behest of other governments<\/a>:<\/p>\n Examples such as these are far too numerous, and they contribute to the widely shared perception among activists and users in MENA and the Global South that these platforms do not care<\/a> about them, and often fail to protect<\/a> human rights defenders when concerns are raised.<\/p>\n Arbitrary and non-transparent account suspension and removal of political and dissenting speech has become so frequent and systematic that they cannot be dismissed as isolated incidents or the result of transitory errors in automated decision-making.<\/p>\n While Facebook and Twitter can be swift in responding to public outcry from activists or private advocacy by human rights organizations (particularly in the United States and Europe), in most cases responses to advocates in the MENA region leave much to be desired. End-users are frequently not informed of which rule they violated, and are not provided a means to appeal to a human moderator.<\/p>\n Remedy and redress should not be a privilege reserved for those who have access to power or can make their voices heard. The status quo cannot continue.<\/p>\n The MENA region has one of the world\u2019s worst records<\/a> on freedom of expression, and social media remains critical for helping people connect, organize, and document human rights violations and abuses.<\/p>\n We urge you to not be complicit in censorship and erasure of oppressed communities\u2019 narratives and histories<\/strong>, and we ask you to implement the following measures to ensure that users across the region are treated fairly and are able to express themselves freely:<\/p>\n Signed:<\/strong><\/p>\n Access Now Ten years ago today, 26-year old Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest over injustice and state marginalization, igniting mass uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, and other countries across the Middle East and North Africa. As we mark the 10th anniversary of the Arab Spring, we, the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"labor":[394],"years":[],"class_list":["post-20465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-statements","labor-homepost"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anhri.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anhri.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anhri.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anhri.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anhri.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20465"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.anhri.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20480,"href":"https:\/\/www.anhri.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20465\/revisions\/20480"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anhri.info\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.anhri.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anhri.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anhri.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20465"},{"taxonomy":"labor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anhri.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Flabor&post=20465"},{"taxonomy":"years","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.anhri.info\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fyears&post=20465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n
\nArabic Network for Human Rights Information \u2014 ANHRI
\nArticle 19
\nAssociation for Progressive Communications \u2014 APC
\nAssociation Tunisienne de Pr\u00e9vention Positive
\nAvaaz
\nCairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)
\nThe Computational Propaganda Project
\nDaaarb \u2014 News \u2014 website
\nEgyptian Initiative for Personal Rights
\nElectronic Frontier Foundation
\nEuro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor
\nGlobal Voices
\nHossam el-Hamalawy, journalist and member of the Egyptian Revolutionary Socialists Organization
\nHumena for Human Rights and Civic Engagement
\nIFEX
\nIlam- Media Center for Arab Palestinians In Israel
\nImpACT International for Human Rights Policies
\nInitiative Mawjoudin pour l\u2019\u00e9galit\u00e9
\nIraqi Network for Social Media \u2013 INSMnetwork
\nI WATCH Organisation (Transparency International \u2014 Tunisia)
\nKhaled Elbalshy \u2013 Daaarb website \u2013 Editor in Chief
\nMahmoud Ghazayel, Independent
\nMarlena Wisniak, European Center for Not-for-Profit Law
\nMasaar \u2014 Technology and Law Community
\nMichael Karanicolas, Wikimedia\/Yale Law School Initiative on Intermediaries and Information
\nMohamed Suliman, Internet activist
\nKali magazine \u2014 Middle East and North Africa
\nPalestine Digital Rights Coalition (PDRC)
\nThe Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy
\nPen Iraq
\nQuds News Network
\nRanking Digital Rights
\nRima Sghaier, Independent
\nSada Social Center
\nSkyline International for Human Rights
\nSMEX
\nSyrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM)
\nThe Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP)
\nTaraaz
\nTemi Lasade-Anderson, Digital Action
\nWITNESS
\nVigilance Association for Democracy and the Civic State \u2014 Tunisia
\n7amleh \u2013 The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"