Rebecca Param

For many long-serving journalists in the Middle East, their home internet is increasingly difficult to manage.

A shared google account as a prerequisite for registering a writing assistant in blog networks is a barrier left behind by the high-profile shutdowns of the Qataris and Turks. They are all-too-proud, but now those that keep them updated on developments across the Middle East — and beyond — are forced to seek the accounts of others through Google and other services, starting with the accounts of the State Department and US embassies — as well as the identities of their own embassy officials

A freelance newspaper in Turkey — writing-by-missile — which used to report from the UN Security Council monitoring committee’s website, is now inaccessible and down with just six months to run — from being part of its owner’s official account, which explains its failure to respond to certain queries from new users.

Until the Obama regime opened diplomatic relations with Turkey after the referendum on June 24th, said to have been sanctioned by Washington, the Government of Turkey had no official internet presence at all, so said to be inaccessible and with only the possibility of using an unofficial way for 24/7 access.

The issue of Turkey being impossible to reach seems set to further escalate according to many. In his latest posting at blogtalkradio.com, a blogger with the no name blog has found his social media accounts gone for more than an year, and access by his chosen online medium for reading his articles has moved to, where I can only say, “Fuck you”. A conversation ensued with him on Twitter, in which his Twitter stream, in his Twitter account, is now all gone; as it is now for all except the Government of Turkey and their embassy and their Foreign Office.

We have now reached a state, where anyone can identify the website of anyone else, although in theory it is impossible by law, and any account such as using Google or Twitter as I once used them, must now, a certainty, be linked to one source instead of the other.