The Internet has always been hailed as the great equalizer of humanity, touted to allow access to information for everyone and anyone alike, so long as they have access to a web browser and a connection. While two-thirds of the world is still not online — the world average penetration rate is 35.7% — there is a significant effort to try and make Internet access a basic human right, most notably by Mark Zuckerberg and his Internet.org initiative.

Not one to be left behind, the UAE has been robustly extending its communications infrastructure in recent years. As a result, more than 85% of UAE residents are now online, making it the third highest online rate in the Middle East. It also ranks 17th on the global rankings, according to a recently released report by the United Nations Broadband Commission. This ranking also places the UAE ahead of the US, ranked 24th, and Germany, ranked 19th.

However, fast Internet is only half the story. Based on the Freedom on the Net 2013 report produced by Freedom House, the UAE only scored 66/100 for its Internet freedom, with 100 being the least free and zero being the most free. Scores in the report were tallied up by combining three sub-components: Obstacles to Access, Limits on Content and Violations of User Rights.

Freedom House’s Limits on Content ranking considered that “the state continued to block certain political and social websites, as well as pornography and gambling sites, and other content deemed offensive to public order, religion or morality.” Also, the main contributor to the Obstacles to Access category in the UAE is the exorbitantly high price of broadband packages. This leads to the UAE being ranked as one of the countries with the most expensive broadband rates worldwide, with high-end packages costing up to 8,000 AED per year. This means that while Internet remains affordable for most Emiratis, it is not necessarily so for the large migrant worker population that live here.

Lastly, the Violations of User’s Rights component is ranked based on incidence of cases where websites owned by specific individuals, such as the dissident website UAE Hewar and the online newspaper Watan, have been blocked or shut down in the UAE. In addition, it considers a new cybercrime law, introduced in November 2012, that stipulates jail sentences and hefty fines for users who engage in online gambling, dissemination of pornographic material, offending state rulers or their symbols or insulting Islam and other religions. Also, calls to change the ruling system are punishable by life imprisonment. (http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-net/2013/united-arab-emirates)

However, despite these laws and provisions, the Internet has proven a resilient and liberating medium. Since the regional uprisings of 2011, UAE users, while they remain anonymous, have begun to take bolder steps in discussing issues and making their voices heard, typically over social media.

These sorts of provisions and legislations are not unique to the UAE. In fact, other countries across the Gulf region and across the Middle East in general tend to practice some form of censorship as well. However, with the advent of Tor and other forms of anonymization software, as well as the rise in popularity of videp- conferencing tools, collaborating and discussing issues and organizing events is getting harder and harder to censor.

One such collaboration discussing these issues is happening in the UAE, right in Sama Tower. Dorm Room Diplomacy is  an NGO that groups university students around the world to meet once a week in a group video-conference and discuss issues.

“I think censorship can refer to any attempt to control what an individual sees, reads or has access to. This is purposefully a broad definition, as it allows for parents controlling what their children see, governments blocking certain websites, schools banning books,” says Rebecca Farnum, a postgraduate International Law student at the University of Edinburgh when asked for her definition of censorship.

For Rahima Souhail, a student at the Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology in Pakistan, censorship has affected her personally. A year ago the Pakistani government decided to block YouTube within the country, based on a questionable video on the site.

“I don’t believe censorship is ever justified. I think it’s a person’s right to know everything. Parents may censor what their children watch [or] look up on the Internet, but only to a certain extent,” she said.

Meanwhile, Jerry Cheong, a senior at Binghamton University in the United States, originally from Singapore, has his own interesting take on censorship and how governments that censor could actually end up drawing attention to the censored materials.

“The Internet’s versatility lies in its formlessness and relative anonymity. In many cases, a complete blackout of the Internet in a certain area as an effort to censor will draw international attention and ire, which is ultimately counterproductive to censorship in the first place,” he commented.

But what about the opinions of people who live in recognized non-censoring countries like the United States? Ben Sheridan, another senior at Binghamton, weighed in, saying: “Living in America, talking about Internet censorship is a challenging question, because there is little censorship impeding my ability to explore the web. I definitely do not want more censorship, but I accept controls on security.”

As her final say, Rahima feels that moving forward, she wants to see no government censorship on websites, whether inside or outside of Pakistan.

“I need my YouTube back!” she emphasized.