Category Archives: Freedom and the Internet

02Jun/08

Slavery and Freedom on the Internet

By Nir Boms, The Jerusalem Post

Aug. 21, 2007

The Internet – the free and open Web of ideas – has become the new symbol of freedom, or at least one of its more visible prophets. Howard Rheingold, a scholar of the early Internet era, predicted a utopian vision where the “electronic agora” would change the public space and create a free, global society, or an “Athens without slaves.”

But Rheingold’s vision remains utopian. Research shows that outside the Western hemisphere, it is the terrorist groups that have gained the upper hand on the Internet as they use its free virtual space to support radicalism and extremism rather than democracy and freedom. Today, there are more than 5,000 Internet sites affiliated with terrorist groups. Continue reading

21May/08

Syria and Tunisia: Enemies of the Web

By Nir Boms
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 15, 2004

Last month, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan announced the creation of a new group to exert control over what has remained a rare bastion of freedom: the Internet.

The group’s forum is the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Its 40 members, all appointed by Annan, include Cuba, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe and Tunisia. In other words, several of the world’s most repressive regimes will decide on matters of freedom of expression. Pakistan, Russia and Egypt, whose governments heavily censor Internet activity, are group members as well. Their selection for WSIS comes as no surprise, given the UN’s past appointments of Libya to head a human rights committee and Saddam’s Iraq to sit in a disarmament group. Continue reading

21May/08

Democracy Web

 

August 23rd, 2004

By Nir Boms/Erick Stakelbeck

While the war on terror has left scores of Islamist terrorists worldwide on the run, there is still one place where they – or at least, their message – can find safe refuge: the Internet. 

In the past two weeks alone, a beheading, a graphic terrorist training video and several chilling threats against the West have all been posted on Islamist Web sites. In addition, the FBI announced on Aug. 9 that it was investigating Mazen Mokhtar, an Egyptian-born American citizen, for allegedly operating a radical site that solicited funds and recruited fighters for the Taliban and other jihadist groups. 

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14May/08

Gaza’s Internet War

Islamic war on freedom of thought in Gaza should concern Israelis as well

Niv Lillian, Nir Boms

Published:   06.04.07, 09:08 / Israel Opinion

At 3 am, in the shadow of the ongoing fighting, a giant blast shook Allah al-Shawa’s Internet cafe in Gaza. The owner, who rushed to his business in order to examine the damage, found one computer in working order in the rubble and decided to check his e-mail.

A surprise awaited him: An e-mail message from a group calling itself “Islamic Swords of Justice” explained that the cafe was blown up because it and those of its type “divert the attention of an entire generation to other issues that are not Jihad or worship.” In other words, the e-mail charged that his Internet cafe was used for distributing abomination and pornography.

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