Eliza Aspen

​​​​​​​Cyber violence against women is defined as a form of gender-based violence (GBV) carried out through digital means. The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically heightened the risk and incidence of violence against women both online and offline: the Australian eSafety Commissioner reported a 50% increase in domestic and cyber violence reports since March 2020. Globally, Facebook remains the most common platform for gendered violence online, followed closely by Instagram and WhatsApp. These developments show that special consideration must be given to the role of digital platforms in facilitating violence against women, and that policy solutions regarding violence against women must also consider the online context where that violence often takes place and escalates in plain sight. 

Tech platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google have come to play a central role in questions of free speech, governance, and human rights in the Middle East. In particular, the question of content moderation — how platforms create and enforce policies which determine what kinds of user-generated content are and are not permissible on their services — has become a focal point of these discussions.

This week’s briefing on recent news and upcoming events in the region featuring Maxim A. Suchkov, Ibrahim Jalal, Eliza Campbell, Alex Vatanka, and Marvin G. Weinbaum.

The increasing adoption of biometric technology by governments, aid organizations, and other stakeholders in the Middle East has critical implications for regional developments in business, governance, and society. And while some observers and stakeholders have noted the potential for such tools to streamline security infrastructure and provide opportunities for sectors as diverse as mobile payment and financial security, a growing chorus of voices has raised concern about the potential of biometric data to similarly streamline violations of human rights, particularly those of the region’s most vulnerable populations.

In an unexpected and disappointing turn of events, Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party and its parliamentary ally, the Nationalist Action Party, rushed through a stifling social media amendment to Turkey’s Internet Act.

While it seems as though the immediate threat of Israeli annexation has, for the time being, faded, the incident raises an interesting new set of questions about how this particular battle will continue to play out in an increasingly digitized Middle East and the potential for retaliation by Palestinian and other actors in cyberspace, whether or not such an annexation takes place.

The digitization of business in the Middle East has enormous implications for the future of regional economies, as well as for education, employment, and beyond. The way this digital transition shapes the region will be influenced by the degree to which policymakers consider this shift in its context and with an eye toward the future, as the opening session of the MEI Cyber Program’s recent conference explored.

From the growing impact of social media on popular movements and politics in the Middle East to the changing face of journalism and civil society online, the intersection of digital spaces with politics is one of the most critical emerging areas for examining the future of dissent, human rights, and democracy in the region. This issue was a central focus during the second panel of the MEI Cyber Program’s inaugural June conference, with experts highlighting several critical areas for consideration and examination in the years to come.

Despite the empowering and liberating potential of new communications technologies, the growing power and influence of autocrats is undermining pressure for human rights and good governance. Authoritarian regimes have embraced new technologies and influence campaigns have become one of the many ways in which they seek to reassert their control over the media and civilians. During the third panel of the MEI Cyber Program’s inaugural June conference, experts examined the development of online manipulation campaigns and discussed how governments conduct these operations, as well as the campaigns’ dangers, limits, and the best policies to encourage free speech online in the Middle East.  

The growing role of cyber conflict in the Middle East continues to raise questions about the future of regional relations, national security, and defense. A diverse group of experts provided a close-up perspective on the region’s cyber threat landscape and its major players and tools during the fourth panel of MEI’s Cyber Program conference, shedding light on how these threats are shaped by specific regional dynamics.

The danger of disinformation relating to the virus remains potent, and continues to present a persistent threat.

Amid widespread protests over an abrupt decision to hike gasoline prices by 50 percent, Iran’s internet is out again. The government cut access in what is widely seen as an attempt to stem the flow of information, pictures, and videos of protests that reportedly took place in at least 100 cities and towns and involved an estimated 87,000 Iranians.

The role of cybersecurity in the future of geopolitics in the Middle East and the surrounding regions will have much to do with individual state and enterprise preparedness. With cyber threats a growing source of interstate tension, governments must take measures to increase national cyber preparedness that are tailored to their vulnerabilities and cyber ecosystems. Israel and Estonia are examples of states that prove this rule. Despite their relatively small size, both have demonstrated an exceptional capacity to deter or defend against cyber aggression from their much larger, more aggressive neighbors.

Recent legal action by tech giant Facebook has critical implications for the rise of private sector actors in the fight for dominance and security in the Middle East cyber domain. On Oct. 29, Facebook filed a lawsuit against the Israel-based company NSO Group for allegedly breaching users of the Facebook-owned communications platform WhatsApp.

The microblogging and social media service Twitter recently announced the suspension of 271 accounts linked to several Middle East governments a year after the company first released public information about the existence of state-run manipulation using its tools. The company cited violation of its policies on platform manipulation as the reason for the suspensions.