Week in Review: November 18, 2015

China: Government Temporarily Unblocks Facebook

According to a report by Global Voices, on November 11, Internet users from mainland China were able to access Facebook without using circumvention tools for approximately two days. During this window, the Taiwanese presidential front runner Tsai Ing-wen is said to have received tens of thousands of Facebook messages, the majority of which demanded that the island return to China. In response, Tsai said to her new friends from China, "Welcome to the world of Facebook!"  The social network had been blocked without interruption since 2009. 

Egypt: Egyptian Revolution Facebook Activist Faces Continued Legal Challenges ` On Sunday, November 5, 2015, an Egyptian court announced that it would rule on activist Wael Ghonim's case in January 2016. Ghonim, a former Google employee, formerly ran the "We Are All Khaled Said" Facebook page and is at risk of being stripped of his Egyptian nationality for doing so. In 2011, he became a symbol of pro-democracy demonstrations in Egypt, after the police detained him for 11 days to learn more about his role in maintaining the page. Afterwards, Ghonim spoke extensively about his experiences in the Egyptian penal system in this interview [AR].  He has since also given a TED Talk [EN] on the Arab Spring and was named by the World Economic Forum as one of its Young Global Leaders in 2012. His case has been covered by a number of international news outlets [FR], [DE]. In 2015, the Harvard Kennedy School welcomed Ghonim as a senior fellow at the Ash Centre for Democratic Governance and Innovation.

Facebook: CEO Mark Zuckerberg Discusses Evolving Policy on "Safety Check" 

On Friday, November 13, 2015, in the wake of the attacks in France, Facebook activated its "Safety Check" feature, which permitted users in Paris to confirm their status and let friends and family know they were alright. Previously, the Safety Check had only been used to help people affected by natural disasters, in countries such as Afghanistan, Chile, Nepal, and the Philippines; last week marked the first time that the feature was deployed in response to a terror attack. Many netizens criticized the company for not implementing the new feature following recent attacks in Lebanon, Turkey, and Kenya. One critic, Kadhim Shubber of the Financial Times, wrote about his concerns: "But things get trickier still. When is a country at war? [...] How often do bombs need to go off before Facebook says Safety Check can no longer be activated because there’s no clear beginning or end to the violence? We could reasonably agree that Syria is a country in the midst of a war but what about Afghanistan – is it safe enough now? In effect, Facebook is saying this service will be available when your country is safe enough for the