As the latest Middle East war rages on, informative interactive maps aggregate social media data from Gaza and Israel. Read More

Mobily, an arm of the state-owned Middle Eastern telecom giant Etihad Etisalat, has been accused of working with Saudi Arabia to develop software that would allow the government to bypass protections for social media users. The exposé comes from Moxie Marlinspike (neé Matthew Rosenfield), an expert in a certain type of malicious Internet attack called MITM (man-in-the-middle), whereby attackers intercept and secretly alter private messages exchanged via email and other social media platforms. Read More

At 3:30 Wednesday morning, Jim Cowie received an automated text message: Syria's Internet was down, again. The eight hour outage today was the second Internet blackout in Syria since the start of May, and the fourth since last November. Many have speculated the blackouts are a result of deliberate government interference, but there is no consensus as to why and indeed no concrete evidence one way or the other.

Palestinian Googlers might have noticed something different about their search engine homepage on Thursday. Google has changed the subheading of the Palestinian edition, Google.ps, from the “Palestinian Territories” to “Palestine.” This acknowledgement by the search giant follows the United Nations decision in November 2012 to recognize Palestine as a non-member state, in spite of objections by the US and Israel.

The Iraqi government has banned eight television news stations from broadcasting in the country, accusing them of inciting sectarian violence between Sunni and Shi'a Muslims. Read More

When the Egyptian prosecutor's office summoned a famous comedian and political satirist for questioning, accusing him of insulting the president and Islam, a war of words ensued on Twitter. On one side was the U.S. State Department, in the form of the U.S. embassy in Cairo, squaring off against the Egyptian president's office and Ikhwanweb, the Muslim Brotherhood's official media wing, which has an active Twitter account. On the sidelines ordinary 'netizens queued up to cheer and jeer. Read More

Of all the Middle Eastern countries that have been touched by the Arab Spring, Saudi Arabia is known as one of the few where social media discourse has flourished, with Saudis from all walks of life sharing their experiences in the country on sites like Twitter, often under their own names.  That relatively open landscape may become more limited, after recent online outcry related to the criminal trials of several major political activists has brought forth a heated response from religious leaders and governmental officials.

A Daily Beast article that was critical of Afghan President Hamid Karzai earlier this week has sparked social media backlash from Afghanis, who say that the American author glossed over real political conditions in the country for the sake of an inflammatory argument. 

Human rights organizers utilize crowdmapping technology for the first time in history to document sexualized violence in Syria’s ongoing war. Read More

In a 21st century digital echo of Monty Python's Life of Brian, Israel, a country of just over 7 million, has two Pirate Parties. One is called Pirate Party Israel and the other the Israel Pirate Party. Neither party recognizes the legitimacy of the other; nor do their founders have anything positive to say about one another. Read More