OpenNet Initiative Blog – Political satire, Internet surveillance, and user empowerment: A story of a remix clip from the Middle East

Users in the Middle East and North Africa not only mock the political authorities by producing and distributing such content, but they mock the surveillance efforts by using various techniques to defeat and protest censorship and surveillance. In some cases, the Internet has been used to multiply the effect of questionable content. In June 2006, when the Lebanese satellite channel LBC broadcast a satirical sketch of Hassan Nasrallah, the head Hizbullah, supporters of the militant group took to the streets protesting what they considered as outrageous and insensitive. The producer of the show had to apologize. However, Internet users posted the clip on a large number of video sharing sites including YouTube with English subtitles, to protest what they considered as an unacceptable form of censorship.

The story of the remix provides us with a brief look into the impact of the different modes of online surveillance and censorship on the users’ online behavior and how that behavior is influenced by the users’ awareness of obtrusive surveillance.

Read the article and after that, watch both videos.