To Örebro University

This study examines how three types of extreme events (heat waves, droughts, floods) are mentioned together with climate change on social media. English-language Twitter use during 2008–2017 is analyzed, based on 1,127,996 tweets (including retweets). Frequencies and spikes of activity are compared and theoretically interpreted as reflecting complex relations between the extreme event factor (the occurrence of an extreme event); the media ecology factor (climate-change oriented statements/actions in the overall media landscape) and the digital action factor (activities on Twitter). Flooding was found to be by far the most tweeted of the three in connection to climate change, followed by droughts and heat waves. It also led when comparing spikes of activity. The dominance of floods is highly prevalent from 2014 onwards, triggered by flooding events (extreme event factor), the climate science controversy in US politics (media ecology factor) and the viral power of celebrities’ tweets (digital action factor).

This dissertation explores the role of Internet censorship and circumvention in the Arab world as well as Arabs’ views on the limits to free speech on the Internet.

The project involves the creation of an Internet censorship circumvention tool named Alkasir that allows users to report and access certain types of censored websites. The study covers the Arab world at large with special focus on Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen.

This work is of interdisciplinary nature and draws on the disciplines of media and communication studies and computer science. It uses a pioneering experimental approach by placing Alkasir in the hands of willing users who automatically feed a server with data about usage patterns without storing any of their personal information.

In addition to the analysis of Alkasir usage data, Web surveys were used to learn about any technical and nontechnical Internet censorship practices that Arab users and content producers may have been exposed to. The study also aims at learning about users’ experiences with circumvention tools and how such tools could be improved.

The study found that users have successfully reported and accessed hundreds of censored social networking, news, dissident, multimedia and other websites. The survey results show that while most Arab informants disapprove censoring online anti-government political content, the majority support the censoring of other types of content such as pornography, hate speech, and anti-religion material.

Most informants indicated that circumvention tools should be free of charge, fast and reliable. An increase in awareness among survey respondents of the need for privacy and anonymity features in circumvention solutions was observed.

How can one overcome obstacles created to hide information from the public, particularly in a time of excessive repression? This article presents an overview of the challenges and triumphes that were witnessed by one of a Yemeni cyber activist who had to confront the censorship of his news website and moved from struggling for his own cause to a wider cause. He explains how he moved from the national scope to the international by developing software that enabled activists around the world to access online information that governments block. The article is a mixture of personal narrations of previous experiences and a highlight on the difficult and turbelant time cyber activists have suffered from during the Arab Spring.

The author argues that in order for Yemen to develop, it is important that it develops an open government with the utilization of open data through online means. The argument is that transparency enhances accountability, which in turn improves governance. Information technology is seen as crucial in this process.