Republished by HRW.org

Facebook issued its first transparency report, surprising no one in saying that the US government has made more requests for user data than any other country. US surveillance practices are only one of the reasons the country leads the pack: Facebook is also based in the US, as are many of its users.

More troubling, however, is that Facebook’s report, which covers the first half of 2013, named the Indian government as making the second most requests, with 3,245 in total. While India is one of Facebook’s fastest growing markets, this is over four times the number Brazil made in the same period, which has a comparable number of Facebook users. India has used its laws to arrest people for posting comments critical of its government on social media. Given this record, both Facebook and the government need to be more transparent regarding the nature of these requests.

The numbers for the UK, Germany, Italy, France, and Brazil are also high. Notably, Facebook complied with less than 40 percent of requests from Germany, France, and Brazil. Users in these countries should be asking why these requests were rejected: Were they overbroad or vague? Did the government not follow privacy laws?

Considering the current controversy over US surveillance practices, the US numbers say less than they seem. The US government only allows companies to reporton national security requests when lumped in with ordinary law enforcement requests. This limitation inhibits real debate as to whether the surveillance practices of the US are proportional or justified. In July, we called on the US government to remove these limitations and increase transparency.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant for government abuses and Facebook (and its peers) have taken a great first step in issuing these reports. In the future, we’d love to see the same data on government requests to Facebook that would restrict freedom of expression. As a member of the Global Network Initiative, Facebook should also explain how it minimizes the harm to privacy in cases where it does comply with a request.

Ultimately, governments should follow suit and be more transparent about how they enlist tech companies in surveillance efforts. And citizens should be asking their governments to justify why they need so much information about users’ Facebook activities – and show that they are protecting the right to privacy.

The European Union’s High Representative Catherine Ashton and EU member states’ representatives, who are meeting with their Gulf region counterparts in Bahrain on June 30, should condemn the convictions, Human Rights Watch said.

“Sending people off to years in prison for peaceful Facebook posts sends a strong message that there’s no safe way to speak out in Saudi Arabia, even on online social networks,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “If the EU doesn’t raise these cases with Saudi officials this weekend, its silence will look like craven compliance with the rights abuses of an authoritarian state.”

Saudi authorities arrested the men between September 23 and 26, 2011, then detained them in the General Investigations Prison in Damman for a year and a half before charging them and putting them on trial on April 29. They were tried before the Specialized Criminal Court, set up in 2008 to deal with terrorism-related cases. Authorities did not accuse the seven of directly participating in protests, and the court failed to investigate their allegations that intelligence officers tortured them into signing confessions.

Human Rights Watch has called repeatedly for abolition of the court because of its lack of independence and unfair procedures.

In the court judgment, which Human Rights Watch obtained, the charges against the seven varied. But the court convicted them all of joining Facebook pages to “incite protests, illegal gathering, and breaking allegiance with the king” and of “assisting and encouraging these calls and corresponding with the [Facebook pages’] followers and concealing them.” All seven were also convicted of violating article 6 of the Anti-Cyber Crime Law, which prohibits producing, sending, or storing any material via an information network that “harms public order.”

The court imposed its harshest sentence – 10 years in prison – on Abd al-Hamid al-Amer. Prosecutors accused him of founding two Facebook groups, through which he allegedly “conscripted others to join the movements” and “gave them ideas and guidance on the important sites in which to protest and set the timing [of the protests].”

None of the charges accused the seven of using or advocating violence, as the presiding judge confirmed in the judgment, saying, “Breaking allegiance [with the king] comes by way of arms and it comes by way of protests, marches, and writing articles and publications … the behavior of the [second] course … is sometimes the more dangerous and more malicious method.”

The Facebook groups that prosecutors cited, including the “al-Ahsa March 4 Youth Movement” and “The Free Men of al-Ahsa,” arose in early 2011 after the authorities arrested Tawfiq al-Amer, a prominent Shia sheikh and religious leader in the al-Ahsa region of Eastern Province who had publicly called for a constitutional monarchy. His arrest provoked widespread protests and the authorities arrested dozens of his supporters in al-Ahsa in March 2011. The same court sentenced the sheikh to four years in prison in April 2013 and banned him from writing and public speaking.

The seven men all admitted to participating in the Facebook pages in support of al-Amer, but told the court they were unaware that it was a crime. They denied having any intention to break allegiance with the king or harm public order.

The prosecution, however, produced confessions that each of the seven had signed in pre-trial custody, which the court accepted as evidence of guilt although several of the defendants said intelligence officers had tortured them into signing the confessions. The presiding judge dismissed the torture allegations out of hand, describing the defendants’ claims as “not acceptable” due especially to “their inability to prove the allegations of coercion and torture.”

“The judge’s outright dismissal of the defendants’ torture allegations shows how little interest he had in finding the truth,” Stork said. “What these men did should never have been considered crimes in the first place, and the outcome was effectively determined from day one.”

A family member of one of the seven prisoners told Human Rights Watch that none of them had the money to hire a lawyer. Saudi Arabia’s Criminal Procedure Law does not entitle defendants to legal representation, and there is no provision for a public defender for those who cannot afford a lawyer. Family members told Human Rights Watch that the seven intend to appeal their convictions. If they do so unsuccessfully, the time they have already served in prison will be deducted from their sentences, the court judgment says.

Saudi Arabia has no written penal code and prosecutors and judges have discretion to criminalize acts based on their own interpretation of Islamic law. The lack of clear and predictable criminal law violates international human rights principles, such as those that prohibit arbitrary arrest and guarantee fair trials. Article 15 of the Arab Charter on Human Rights, which Saudi Arabia ratified in 2009, states: “No crime and no penalty can be established without a prior provision of the law. In all circumstances, the law most favorable to the defendant shall be applied.” International human rights standards also prohibit the criminalization of peaceful speech.

Article 32 of the Arab Charter guarantees the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and to impart news to others by any means.

The conviction of the seven comes amid a series of other convictions of peaceful dissidents and human rights activists in June. The same court sentenced a human rights activist, Mikhlif al-Shammari, to five years in prison on June 17 for “sowing discord” and a host of other charges stemming from his peaceful activism. Two days earlier, a Khobar court sentenced the women’s rights advocates Wajeha al-Huwaider and Fawzia al-Oyouni to 10 months in prison for allegedly “inciting a woman against her husband.” On June 24, a court in the central Najd town of Buraida sentenced human rights activist Abd al-Kareem al-Khodr to eight years in prison on charges that included “slandering the king” and “joining an unlicensed organization.”

“The EU should publicly press Saudi Arabia to stop jailing human rights activists and peaceful dissidents, and to respect its international human rights obligations,” Stork said.

Facebook joined the Global Network Initiative after participating as an observer in the organization for the past year. By becoming a full member, Facebook has pledged to abide by a set of human rights principles for respecting the rights to freedom of expression and privacy. The company also agrees to independent, third-party monitoring to show that it is complying with the initiative’s standards.

“Facebook has an undeniable responsibility to safeguard human rights for the more than billion people who use it,” said Arvind Ganesan, business and human rights director at Human Rights Watch and board member of the Global Network Initiative.

“By joining the Global Network Initiative, Facebook is taking an important step to respect its users’ human rights and to be accountable to them. The real test is to see how it implements GNI’s principles.”

The Global Network Initiative was started in 2008 to establish a global standard for corporate responsibility in the technology sector for the rights to freedom of expression and privacy. By joining the Global Network Initiative, Facebook has made a commitment to carry out appropriate human rights policies. Unlike some voluntary industry standards, GNI requires members to accept independent monitoring of their progress and commitments. If a member company fails to comply with the requirements, it can be ejected from the initiative.

Human rights defenders and civil society groups increasingly use social media to organize and hold governments and other powerful actors accountable. In countries where traditional, offline media are heavily controlled, social media have also become an essential source for independent news and a platform for public debate. Services like Facebook can be crucial for the work of journalists and activists, who use the service as an alternative channel for distributing their work. In one recent example, independent radio stations and online newspapers in Malaysia began providing content through Facebook and other major social media platforms ahead of the May 2013 elections after multiple, distributed denial-of-service attacks brought down their primary websites.

Facebook’s internal policies can have a considerable impact on people’s ability to use the firm’s service to exercise their rights to freedom of expression and information, and to safeguard their privacy, Human Rights Watch said.

At the same time, Facebook has faced widespread criticism over its apparently arbitrary approach to posts and sites that appear to endorse violence against women online and requests to censor other information. GNI is a forum in which those issues can be addressed and doing so is a responsibility Facebook has accepted in order to implement GNI’s principles.

On another worrying front, governments are discovering that the Internet is an effective tool for censorship and oppression. Authorities increasingly seek the aid of Internet firms to censor online content and monitor activists and human rights defenders. Social media companies collect and store sensitive personal data, including contact lists, group affiliations, and even emails or chat logs, and authorities are increasingly pressing companies for access to such data. In recent years, Human Rights Watch has witnessed an increase in the arrest and detention of bloggers, restrictions on websites and content, and online intimidation and surveillance of peaceful political activists.

Human Rights Watch believes that companies like Facebook should have effective policies and procedures in place to safeguard human rights online, and to guide company decisions in the face of government requests for censorship and user data because they often operate in environments hostile to human rights. Human Rights Watch is a founding member of the Global Network Initiative and serves on its board of directors. While voluntary efforts like the GNI are an important component for increasing corporate accountability, ultimately regulation is also needed to ensure that all Internet companies respect their users’ human rights, Human Rights Watch said.

Five other companies have joined the initiative: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, the voice-recording service Evoca, and the software maker Websense. The initiative is governed by a multi-stakeholder board that includes human rights organizations, socially responsible investment groups, academic institutions, and independent experts.

“Facebook is part of a growing number of companies that recognize their human rights responsibilities on and off-line,” Ganesan said. “Without meaningful corporate accountability across the Internet sector, companies risk becoming tools for repression, rather than enablers of human rights.

Hosted on the social networking site Facebook, the Stylista game lets players make virtual visits to famous fashion destinations around the world and shop for the latest fashion trends. The game will now offer limited edition t-shirts and bags that will contribute to the World Food Programme’s (WFP) assistance operations inside Syria.

“This is the first Facebook game to support WFP’s emergency response in Syria,” said the Director of WFP Global Private Partnerships, Jay Aldous. “We are grateful for the support of Sandbox Global and the network of Stylista players for their contribution to our life-saving work.”

Stylista, which was created by the Thailand-based digital gaming company Sandbox Global, is played by at least one million online gamers worldwide every month. Players who support WFP will receive special game play features in return for their contributions.

More than 60,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in early 2011. Recent months have witnessed an escalation in the conflict, which has also left more than 4 million people in need of humanitarian assistance. WFP is currently scaling up its operations in Syria to be able to reach 2.5 million people in the coming months.

A second phase of the partnership with Stylista, which will next month, will support WFP’s Mother and Child Health and Nutrition and school meals programmes in Asia. In this phase, Sandbox is developing a Stylista avatar in the likeness of WFP Philippines National Ambassador Against Hunger, KC Concepcion, a fashion icon in her home country.

Stylista will include virtual goods for purchase and new options to enhance a player’s game success by engaging with the fight against hunger. Players will also be able to donate virtual currency, available for actual purchase.

In addition to the virtual goods, all players who make a contribution will receive an email of thanks from Sandbox and WFP.

Like the majority of candidates and parties, all around the world, he invested heavily both in time and money, on communicating online. This was the case during the 2008 Presidential campaign. The emphasis then had been on Facebook, while the latest campaign focused on Social Media as a whole.

Is there any relation between winning an election and online presence? Are heavy spenders on web activities more likely to do better in the political arena?

It seems that Obama championed the Social Media by an impressive lead versus Romney. He communicated policy agendas, feedback from the campaign trail, human interest stories, photo-ops. Literally, he exploited Social Media’s unique features of intimacy, speed, involvement as fully as possible.

A few figures should shed some light. As a result of an integrated online campaign which used Social Media and other platforms, Obama ended up with 32 million Facebook fans and 21 million Twitter followers.

On the other hand, Mitt Romney had 12 million Facebook fans and only 1.7 million followers on Twitter.

Who would disagree that the huge lead in Social Media boosted Barack Obama’s campaign?

In a number of European countries, the situation indicates that incumbents and their parties tend to enjoy higher Social Media followings than the ones not in office.

Of course, in order to achieve this, a devoted, highly professional Social Media guru team is required. There must be a clear and precise Social Media strategy beforehand. Contrary to the belief that Social Media is based on impulse and enthusiasm, if there is no plan, the desired following won’t be achieved.

Could we say with certainty that he who controls the web, controls the game? I am yet to witness the contrary!

Robert Pefanis is a communications specialist, lecturer at the University of Indianapolis, Athens.

Jailed Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has reportedly been on hunger strike for more than a month, told her husband Reza Khandan on November 20 that she was on an “unlimited” hunger strike – as reported on his Facebook page.

Sotoudeh, who was awarded the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought this year, defended political activists, opposition members, and juvenile offenders on death row before she was jailed in September 2010.

Khandan said he was allowed to meet Sotoudeh one day after she was transferred from solitary confinement to the general ward of Section 209 at Tehran’s notorious Evin prison. He said that his wife’s weight had dropped to 43 kilograms.

“I asked her, ‘How long will you continue your hunger strike?’” he wrote. “She said: ‘The hunger strike is unlimited. You know what ‘unlimited’ means?’”

Khandan has repeatedly informed the public about the conditions of his jailed wife via Facebook, which has in recent years become a platform for news that is censored or ignored by Iran’s state-controlled media.

Sotoudeh was sentenced to six years in prison and banned from working as a lawyer for 10 years on charges that include acting against Iran’s national security and spreading propaganda against the Islamic regime.

A mother of two, Sotoudeh reportedly stopped eating in mid-October after prison authorities prevented her relatives from visiting her. Her husband and 12-year-old daughter have also been barred from leaving Iran.

“I can’t sit here and do nothing and let them do whatever they want with my child and family,” Sotoudeh was quoted by her husband as saying in their prison meeting this week.

An October 24 editorial in Britain’s “The Guardian” likened Sotoudeh to Burmese pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, who was also once separated from her children.

Iran’s official IRNA news agency says a parliamentary committee will investigate the alleged torture and death of Iranian blogger Sattar Beheshti.

The man died in police custody after being arrested on October 30 for “actions against national security on social networks and Facebook.”

Before his arrest, Beheshti posted a blog saying he was warned by security services about his anti-regime views.

At some point during his detention, Sattar Beheshti was allegedly held in Iran’s notorious Evin prison, and opposition groups stated that Beheshti was tortured in prison.

Iranian opposition groups say Beheshti’s family was asked on November 7 to collect his body; he was buried in Rabat Karim, southwest of the Iranian capital.

The first official Iranian reaction to the case is signed by the words of deputy parliamentary speaker Mohammad Hasan Abutorabifard, who is quoted by IRNA as saying that the investigation will be conducted by an influential parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy.

The event spawned international outrage. The U.S.-based Committee to Protect Journalists said on November 10 that Iranian authorities must release full details on Beheshti’s “suspicious death” in prison. The U.S. State Department has demanded a probe of what it called “murder.”

Dozens of Iranian bloggers and journalists have been arrested amid widespread crackdowns in Iran in recent years. Amnesty International said fears that Beheshti died as a result of torture in an Iranian detention facility are “very plausible, given Iran’s track record when it comes to deaths in custody.”

On average, users make 7 new Facebook friends per month; they initiate 3 requests and accept 4. Women average 21 updates to their Facebook status per month while men average 6. In a month, about half of our sample made a comment on a friend’s content, and about half received a comment. Fewer than 5% of users hid content from another user on their Facebook feed.

Of people who use social networking sites, 63% have deleted people from their “friends” lists, up from 56% in 2009; 44% have deleted comments made by others on their profile; and 37% have removed their names from photos that were tagged to identify them.

A majority of social network site users – 58% – restrict access to their profiles and women are significantly more likely to choose private settings.

Most Facebook users receive more from their Facebook friends than they give, according to a study that for the first time combines server logs of Facebook activity with survey data to explore the structure of Facebook friendship networks and measures of social well-being.

Over a one-month period, 40% of Facebook users in our sample made a friend request, 63% received at least one request. Users in Pew Research Center sample pressed the like button next to friends’ content an average of 14 times, but had their content “liked” an average of 20 times; users sent 9 personal messages, but received 12; 12% of users tagged a friend in a photo, but 35% were themselves tagged in a photo.

Facebook, on an Average Day is described as follows: 15% of Facebook users update their own status; 22% comment on another’s post or status; 20% comment on another user’s photos; 26% “Like” another user’s content; 10% send another user a private message.

Facebook users are more trusting than others. A Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day is 43% more likely than other internet users and more than three times as likely as non-internet users to feel that most people can be trusted.

Facebook users have more close relationships. Someone who uses Facebook several times per day averages 9% more close, core ties in their overall social network compared with other internet users.

Facebook users are much more politically engaged. Compared with other internet users, and users of other social networking platforms, a Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day is an additional two and half times more likely to attend a political rally or meeting, 57% more likely to persuade someone on their vote, and 43% more likely to have said they would vote.

Facebook users get more social support. A Facebook user who uses the site multiple times per day receives more emotional support and companionship offline (such as having someone help you when you are sick in bed.)

Note: For years, the Pew Internet & American Life Project has been polling people who use social media, asking how they use it and what they get out of it. The story’s figures come from a series of research surveys in the US.

The President of the General Assembly, Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, underlined the importance of new technologies in empowering young people to express themselves, and added that governments should support, not censor these mediums.   “Governments that try to suppress or shut-down new media platforms should rather embrace new media for the beneficial transformation of their societies. They need to create and promote a thriving environment for free media and free expression,” Al-Nasser said.

Free media transform societies by enlightening the decision making process with information, and thus empowering individuals to take control of their destinies. In this context, media freedom plays a crucial role in the transformation of society by reshaping its political, economic and social aspects, according to an UNESCO policy document.

This wave of revolution was triggered by the self-immolation of a vegetable peddler in Tunisia who set himself on fire after having his vegetable cart confiscated and being publicly humiliated by the authorities. This singular image of a desperate act by an ordinary person, which went viral through mobile technology and social media, heralded an extraordinary beginning for this new decade. Years of censorship, suppression, and restriction came crumbling down with the fall of the former Tunisian authorities. Tunisia demonstrated the transformative power that can be brought forth by the convergence of social media, mobile connections, satellite TV and an earnest desire to fundamentally change socio- economic-political situation. It started a domino effect that went on to reach Tahrir Square in Egypt, the city of Benghazi in Libya, and other parts of the region. The actions of young people have been crucial during the movement, and amongst their tools has been social media.

Similarly, in Egypt, the use of social media, ICTs and satellite TV, has also played a revolutionary role in the democratic and political processes. Indeed, the protest movement against the Egyptian authorities was accelerated through the use of social networking sites and specifically through mobile phones. A case in point was the effort of a young Egyptian, Wael Ghonim, who created the Facebook campaign, “We are all Khaled Said”, referring to a 28-year-old Egyptian arrested six months earlier and beaten to death while he was held in detention. This Facebook campaign soon snowballed from thousands to more than a million supporters online. It has been one of the rallying points to denounce the regime’s violence and abuse.

While new voices have come forward seeking transformational change, media freedom is facing severe pressures across the world. According to official figures, 62 journalists were killed last year and many more were injured.

As of December 2011, 179 journalists were detained, indicating a 20 per cent increase from the previous year, and the highest level since the 1990s.

As media moves online, more online journalists, including bloggers, are being harassed, attacked, and killed for their work. UNESCO paper argued they must receive the same protection as traditional media workers.

According to a white paper by ComScore, social networking is the most popular online activity worldwide; the field hosts 1.5 billion people whilst social networking behavior both transcends and reflects regional differences around the world.

At the end of 2011, there were around 18.2 million Facebook users in the Middle East, namely around 8.4% of a total population of 216.2 million (total internet users reached 78.6 million, 35.7% of the population).

Guardian’s Peter Beaumont, correspondent in the Middle East wrote that the defining moment that unites Egypt with Tunisia, Bahrain and Libya is a young woman or a young man with a smartphone. In Egypt, details of demonstrations were circulated by both Facebook and Twitter and the activists’ 12-page guide to confronting the regime was distributed by email.

Micro-blogging is gaining ground amongst web-enabled public figures. Fb-status updates and Tweets are increasingly replacing TV soundbites in the subjective recording of timeliness. Regular news stories incorporate more and more of that. Special stories are written on tweeted reactions of prominent people to events and sayings of others.

In 2008 in the US, Barak Obama used the Internet to target youth of 18 to 29 years olds, the age group most reliant on new media for information about politics and election. A few years later in northern Africa, crowds used the same means to target authority, calling for change.

Dr. Demetris Kamaras is the Editor of AlYunaniya.com