Monday, February 16, 2009

My site was blocked

I could not believe what I saw when I opened this site this morning. Beyond my expectation and far from my anticipation my site was blocked by our ISP. I did not understand why they did this. As what I’ve read in the screen, my site has been blocked because it did not abide the internet laws and protocols of the Emirates. Did I post anything wrong against the Emirates?

I could not remember. Maybe I have few complaints to the institutions but not to the Emirates in particular. I have not posted illicit images and anti-government articles. Maybe I talked about recession and plights of real estate agents in Dubai but those articles are not destructive in nature. Maybe I had write-ups about the unacceptable behavior of taxi drivers lifting me to wrong places in Dubai but it’s not enough to execute penalty against my site as I only wanted to call the attention of the taxi operators.

Or was it because I posted an article on how the Belhasa Driving Institute operates? That its students have to spend thousands of dirhams before getting the Gold Card? I don’t think this article is unethical. My blog is not a newspaper. It’s my personal blog. Or was it because I shared to the world how happy I am with Google Adsense? That within three days I earned USD 134.80.

I really don’t know the reason why it was blocked for about 2 hours. Maybe they wanted to quantify and review the contents of my blog. Whatever the reasons behind it, it’s up to them. The issue is over. I am grateful that after a couple of hours they found my blog worthy to operate.

Indeed, I’d like to keep a promise to my ISP. I understand the norms, cultures and laws of the Emirates, therefore, from now on I will be too careful with my write-ups.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

That's actually scary. Me being a blogger and the same time being in the Emirates means we have to abide by their stringent screening of websites.

Did they provide you with any reason whatsoever? It would be good to share it so that bloggers from this side of the world would know how "not to" get their site blocked by the national ISP.

Ruel said...

There was no reason at all.