Access to the site YouTube was blocked in Morocco between May 25th and May 30th, (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6702973.stm).
Maroc Telecom, the state telecoms company were said to have blamed it on technical complications however I'd happily bet my bottom Dirham - that's money here in the kingdom - that this was state censorship. Their pathetic, official excuse nervously collapsed with the momentum of global ridicule as they realised the outside world were looking at them. YouTube access was miraculously restored after a 'break' of just under one week.
Am I just repeating a kind of anti-governmental propoganda? Well, judge for yourself. I live here in Morocco and YouTube is not the first to 'go down' - that is, a website that affords freedom of speech, or information. Strangely, these 'technical difficulties', some permanently, seem to only affect websites that have some kind of blogging or reporting of a less than complimentary tone towards the state, the king, corrupt officials, or the topic of Morocco annexing Western Sahara. Google Earth has been inaccessible since last year, and remains so after the YouTube frenzy. On top of that we spoke directly with Maroc Telecom Customer Service - they confirmed that access to Google Earth was blocked in Morocco. No reason - but it was and still is blocked - official. Apparently LiveJournal is another site that suffers censorship although I don't know the official take on that. If however one surfs via an anonymous surfing tool - there are many but I don't want to mention them by name because they'll be blocked too - these restricted sites are suddenly available.
Morocco purports to be a burgeoning democracy, to be massively progressive in bringing it and it's people forward in education and life whilst understandably holding onto some fine of it's tradition and family values. It is on a massive drive to boost tourism and investment. If it wants people to invest, visit, settle, and move forward, it is going to have to get into the 21st Century on freedom of speech.
Who am I to know the truth? Many mutterings about the YouTube block were directly related to the protests for the independence of Western Sahara - an ongoing issue for the outside world but kind of okay as it is for Morocco (think huge mineral wealth). It was annexed back in 1975 and attempts to discuss or resolve the issue are as good as dormant - except, for example, down in Laayoune where it is alleged police beat female protesters (pro-independence). Google Earth will remain down for who knows how long? Who knows why, exactly? Is it a security issue? If so, fair enough but talk to Google - they can block block out militarily sensitive areas and royal palaces. The thinking is neanderthal, or, pre-internet. You block the world to us in Morocco but I can just ask a friend in Europe to email me a screenshot of whatever you're hiding!
Whatever the answers here, perhaps the authorities might take a look at this issue and reconsider.
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Comments
Following a long spell where Google Earth was working in Morocco, it is once again inaccessible. Google Earth needs access to three Google servers - auth.keyhole.com, maps.google.com, and kh.google.com. There is a test at http://earth.google.com/getest.html where one can verify if access is possible (recommends use in IE). Often it is just kh.google.com test that fails but when accessed via a proxy, it is successful.
Of course it's sometimes difficult to pinpoint - every so often Google has technical issues - there was a huge one in February - but on this occasion I do not believe that this is the case. On and up to 20th March I had no problem accessing Google sites, any of them, and Google Earth had worked just fine for a long time. I had cautiously felt censor-free. All of a sudden, and over the past couple of days, Google access was totally inaccessible, sometimes a page worked but that was extremely rare. No other websites were limited or inaccessible in any way. There were no reported outages outside Morocco, 'pings' to the same Google servers were normal, furthermore the same Google sites were available using a proxy server (in effect using a middle man to view pages without possible interference of tracking, filtering or blocking), and those Google sites which may be accessed via secure servers (starting and staying on the https protocol) were readily accessible - no problems at all. I could access Gmail, Reader, Docs when using https://... but never using the same urls under http://...
Since yesterday, I was again finding intermittent access to google.com etc. and today it is generally okay except for Google Earth (kh.google.com). I cannot prove this, but everything looks to me like we have Morocco again blocking access to Google Earth. The trouble with access to Google in general, well, my opinion is not censureship or blocking but implementation of filtering systems for surveillance or a general cock-up blocking kh.google.com. I don't readily go for conspiracy theories but here we have some hard-to-avoid facts that suggest intervention in some form or other. Also in 2007, a Maroc Telecom telephone agent told me Google Earth was not allowed in Morocco, even though there was intermittent access for some, and later long stretches of full access up to March 20th. We're back to where we started - selective internet censorship - or what Morocco like to call it - a "technical problem".
There are a couple of discussions from 2006/7 -
One here on Google's Keyhole forum:
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=708609&sit...
and another piece here, with comments:
http://www.ogleearth.com/2006/08/morocco_censors.html
Oh dear, sadly I was wrong. Severe or total Google outage is back. No Google on Maroc Telecom unless using a proxy or secure server. And it's widespread.
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