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Open Letter to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube: Stop silencing critical voices from the Middle East and North Africa


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17 December 2020 | 10:00 am
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.
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.    ....

United States , Mohamed Bouazizi , Mahmoud Ghazayel , Khaled Elbalshy , Mark Zuckerberg , Michael Karanicolas , Marlena Wisniak , Rima Sghaier , Mohamed Suliman , Hossam El Hamalawy , Wikimedia Yale Law School Initiative On Intermediaries , Vigilance Association For Democracy , Linitiative Mawjoudin , European Center , Law Community , Arabic Network For Human Rights Information , Tahrir Institute For Middle East Policy , Electronic Frontier Foundation , Arab Center , Sada Social Center , Organisation Transparency International , Skyline International For Human Rights , Syrian Center , Iraqi Network For Social Media , Cairo Institute For Human Rights Studies , Association Tunisienne De Pr ,

A Decade After the Arab Spring, Platforms Have Turned Their Backs on Critical Voices in the Middle East and North Africa


Many in the U.S. have spent 2020 debating the problems of content moderation on social media platforms, misinformation and disinformation, and the perceived censorship of political views. But globally, this issue has been in the spotlight for a decade. 
This year is the tenth anniversary of what became known as the  Arab Spring , in which activists and citizens across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) used social media to document the conditions in which they lived, to push for political change and social justice, and to draw the world s attention to their movement. For many, it was the first time they had seen how the Internet could have a role to play in pushing for human rights across the world. Emerging social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all basked in the reflected glory of press coverage that centered their part in the protests: often to the exclusion of those who were actually on the streets. The years after the uprisings failed to li ....

United States , Mohamed Bouazizi , Mahmoud Ghazayel , Khaled Elbalshy , Mark Zuckerberg , Michael Karanicolas , Marlena Wisniak , Rima Sghaier , Mohamed Suliman , Hossam El Hamalawy , Wikimedia Yale Law School Initiative On Intermediaries , Vigilance Association For Democracy , Linitiative Mawjoudin , European Center , Arabic Network For Human Rights Information , Law Community , Tahrir Institute For Middle East Policy , Electronic Frontier Foundation , Arab Center , Sada Social Center , Organisation Transparency International , Skyline International For Human Rights , Iraqi Network For Social Media , Syrian Center , Gulf Centre For Human Rights , Cairo Institute For Human Rights Studies ,