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Kuwait is an oil filthy rich country, and that’s pretty much all about it. Every week I read about a 5 year plan to change the face of the country, and make Kuwait a worldwide business centre. We read about big millions and billions being assigned for such projects, those projects we never hear or see later.  I tend to avoid getting into those things, as they ruin my mood, and raise my blood pressure. The problem comes when these silly thigs I try to avoid come in my way. Or our way should I say. Our way of life.

Every day, we use YouTube to watch the news, soccer goals, Islamic lectures, technical presentations, visual tutorials for How To stuff that otherwise are difficult to explain with words, my kid loves it for watching cartoons and I use it to encourage him with educational kids shows. All of that and more. Such a service has made YouTube part of our lives, and a life changer as well.

And then, one day a guy got an email with links to some videos he didn’t like. That man happens to be in a vital position for deciding what’s right and what’s wrong. Driven wih Islamic motives, and taking the prides of a nation on his shoulders, that guy fires up a direct letter to all ISPs to block this whole service, the good and bad of it. We suddenly read about it in the newspapers, YouTube is being blocked. The order gets canceled by the minister, as it was not signed from him, and the individual effort bypassing all authorities goes unpunished. Not only that, but perliment members have adapted the story, backing this individual, and are demanding from the ministry of communications to devote time, effort, and money to fight those videos. When people are celebrating the Ramadan Eid, the perliment members have made it their top priority on the schedules after Eid already to demand an act on those videos, and have expanded their demands to reach other sites as well, or else, they will put the minister for interrogations. 

The next day we hear, the ISPs are receiving letters from the ministry of communcations, which are really nothing more than individual efforts by normal people surfing the net, sending partial links to YouTube, and other offensive partial site links, such as Flickr and others, and the ministry does nothing more than stamping and forwarding them to all ISPs for implementation! To make the matter worse, the minister of communications makes an official statement that they are forming an official committe to unite their vision and statement, then start arranging with Gulf countries, then reach out for the whole Arabic and Islamic world for one big united move against the offensive bunch of videos.

Wooho… We have never seen or heard of such Islamic real uniting, and when was the last time we saw the minister really active and caring? Only when it comes to ministry money, or his chair. I wonder how dare we speak of country opening up for western world, and becoming a worldwide business centre, when few bunch of people on the other side of the world are able to manipulate our priorities, and shake our stabilities and focus, by simply uploading few silly videos.

What message are we really giving back to them? That we are weak and easily shaken country, or as a matter of fact, whole region. And what will happen if we block YouTube and other sites? Guess what, those offensive content will keep coming, and will increase as a matter of fact. People who want to use YouTube and the like will find ways around it, and those who don’t will not know about it, just as if they are looking the other way, and they will not be able to request for those videos to be removed from YouTube anymore. since they don’t know it exists. So blocking is just a fake pretending this problem doesn’t exist, and trying to disbelief the problem will always be there, you cannot stop it.

Did anyone of those demanding fight for offensive videos try to report the video as offensive to the concerned people, YouTube them selves? I have. And so have many others who are as caring and offended by the video, as those people trying to show off. They have a bit more sense of logic though. They try to address the problem, not panic and shout out loud. And guess what, the link I reported got deleted. I even tried to proxy to make sure it’s not only removed from Kuwait, it’s still deleted.

One might think this country is not moving forward, or at least not fast enough. But I believe they’re wrong. We are moving backward full speed and there is no stopping us.

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Unfortunately, this letter is not dated, but it was published today and confirmed by ISPs.

Brief Translation to English:

” Subject: Blocking an offensive website to Holy Quran and Holy Prophet

Reference to the above mentioned subject, and in tribute to the book of God and the holy profit, and in compliance to law order # 17 …, which states on banning porn sites and site offensive to the ethics and Islamic regulations, and since there is a site that sings the Holy Quran, God Forbid, and publishes offensive photos of the holy prophet by searching for “Quran singed and composed” in the below mentioned website, therefore you are requested to act upon and block this site immediately.

1- YouTube.com

“

This is how many Kuwaities started their day. By reading that the site which forms 15% of Kuwaiti traffic, according to one of the ISPs, and the #3 site on all Kuwait traffic according to Alexa, is being blocked, because a minority have published offensive contents. While this is prety rediculous, it’s also pretty much expected. In programming we always say, you give the wrong input, you will get the wrong output. Samething here. You put the wrong person on the job, you get the wrong decisions.

Why do I say that? Is it because I am less of a muslim? Well, maybe I’m not strictly religious, but voting against banning the site comes from various other different reasons:

1. Referring to YouTube as an offensive site that sings and composes the Holy Quran is a mistake against them. It makes it seem like this is the primary function of the site, they are doing it them selves, and that they are backing i up. Not like it’s few users who might have uploaded this video unnoticed.
2. Look at the bright side, our Holy Prophet said. When he saw a dead smelly dog, he looked at the white teethes he has, as a lesson to his friends. Now, YouTube is a lot more than a dead smelly dog here. It has millions of videos, some pointless, some fun, and many others are religious that you and your Islamic friends use on day to day basis. A search for Quran by it self brings 244,000 results! Now that seem a lot for an anti-Islamic site to me!
3. If we hate offensive content to our religion, why do we allow offense on others? What goes around comes around. Our TV, websites, Mosques, and all do show, support, and call for fight against non-muslims, calling them athiests, and our subscription based TV Channels broadcast movies more offensive, making some holy prophets like comedians God Forbid. This is officially estbalished company in Kuwait doing this. Why isn’t there anything to stop it? Local TV is not Ministry of Communicaiton responsibility. Well you can block their site for a start!
4. I got a email about this subject, saw the video, filed a complain request like any mature person would do to YouTube, and now, if I try to watch the video, this is what I get:
    “This video has been removed due to terms of use violation.”
5. To prove how silly it is if this blocking takes place, at the time of writing this article, searching for Quran Singed and Composed in Arabic would bring zero results! Instead, this is what I got:

If they still wanna move forward, despite that YouTube did really act upon the video, listned to people complains, and there isn’t really any such videos right now, then I have a list of suggestions to push our country furter forward, carefully selected from Alexa top 100 sites in Kuwait:

1. Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search: The head of search to all evil things. Block them.
2. Facebook: There are some athiest and anti-Islamic groups. Don’t try to reach them, educate them, or show your thoughts. Just leave the whole site.
3. Maktoob.com: Arabic online forums, e-marriage could be abused for dating, movies, horoscopes. This is not Islamic is it?
4. Kooora.com: All about soccer, mostly European soccer where teams show sponsored Beer and wine ads on their Shirts.
5. RapidShare: Sharing is not monitored, you can’t tell what your people are sharing. And someone might be secretly sharing offensive content. There must be some of it. Or at least, just to be on the safe side
6. Travian.ae: Obiously, why should you let your people play as Romanian soldiers in an online game, helping the Romanian empire expand it’s grounds online, when they could be fighting as Islamic ones.
7. Hi5: Friendship site.
8. Blogger: Where everything is possible to post, and where we protest against site blocking.
9. Microsoft.com: It’s a jewish company! What could be worse? Let’s all use Sakhr computers.
10. Tagged: Again, has offensive videos section
11. Wikipedia: Anyone can edit an article about anything. Westerns are controlling the article. Kill it
12. zShare: Again, uncontrollable private file sharing site
13. Mozook: Online videos, love banners on main page
14. 4Shared: Private shared videos could go offensive unnoticed
15. Q8yat: Forum that has Islamic section, umm section for wives and mothers. But hey, there is Halima Boland celebrity in this banner, and then there is a makeup section!
16. Alwatan: They have a daily comic, and one character is Islami one which they keep making fun of!
17. bramjnet: Hmm… site is down. We might as well give him a shot of mercy just to make sure
18. 6rb: Songs, no need to check it even
19. Orkut: Another social site, encouracing opposite sex to meet
20. Flickr: If Searching reveals offensive photos, this must be one source for them
21. Piczo: Mix of photos, music, and videos. Contain offensive, so it is offensive
22. Metacafe: Has offensive videos as well. Ohh yes, it’s good for soccer goals as well, but still
23. Photobucket: Photo sharing again
24. ImageShack: Photo sharing. We already established this is bad enough
25. Koutbo6: Hmmm… challenging. There is this banner at the top for Eid movies. Those movies has girls in them, and those girls are not respecting our ethics. I don’t think this site is good for Muslims after all
26. NBK: Reba! non-Islamic loans promoted, and some girl pictures show up. Ohh, and it hurts KFH business also. So block it
27. SweetIM: Hmm.. nothing infront, but people use those emoticon icons to chat with opposite sex maybe. Let’s not make harsh decisions, we’ll look into it later
28. Amazon: You can buy EVERYTHING. Everything is certainly not good.
29. Jeeran: Online community to corrupt arab society
30. MediaFire: File sharing. Could share harmful files unnoticed
31. HawaaWorld: It’s an Islamic name, Islamic site, some Islamic hints. Seems good. But they have a makeup section. Na’h. Sorry, not allowed
32. KFH: If the internet was only KFH! Allow
33. OzQ8: Songs. Block
34. KNCC.com: Just censor movies, just ban them. (Didn’t they change their brand to Cinescape. KNCC is still higher in rank :))
35. Google Syndication: The Google ads, all evil Google ads come from here. 
36. Kuwait25: Chat, songs. Anti-Islamic
37. Jazeera Airways: Are you sure they don’t show any bad movies on the flight? What about their waitresses? Maybe they are hot. Take test flight then decide
38. IMDB: Database of Hollywood movies, photos, info and all. Extremely bad
39. Google.com.sa: Even Google Suadi Arabia is not porn FREE! Block it
40. Kuwait Stock Exchange: OK, this is gonna make me on wanted list. But they do trade in companies that run non-Islamic investments. Telecom do sell songs, make draws, bring celebrities and all. This is a door to ivnest in wrong companies. I say we block it
41. DailyMotion: Hey, you forgot that one also. Like YouTube
42. WordPress: What people use to create their own blog. BAD BAD
43. VIP600: Videos. Celebrity Videos. Wrong
44. Friendster: Make friendship with opposite sex and western world. Never!
45. DVD4Arab: Has DVDs and songs section
46. Al-Qabas: They have movies and arts section. Why? Encouraging people to watch those movies. 
47. MySpace: Again, online social sites
48. Q8Car: There you go. 2 whole sites now open to browse. Just make sure you don’t buy Jewish cars please
49. Arabiclub: Well, players are not wearing Islamic shorts. Offensive I guess
50. StarTimes: Seems a bit Islamic. But there is a games section, and we are forming a committe for game censorship. So we can’t allow others to speak about games. Block. Sorry
51. ArabEyes: Love SMS, fashion, movies. How did we miss you before?
52. jsoftj: softwares. Banner for Islamic songs. OK. But a girl is singing those songs. How anti-Islamic. Ban
53. Wataniya: Well, they do have those celebrity photos and videos. Evil
54. 6arab: name says it all
55. Qadsiya Fans: If your shorts were only a bit longer. Ban
56. Qualitynet: The door to all those problems. Let’s just close them down
57. 0zz0: File sharing. Banner for Mesyar marriage. What the…? Sorry, I thought we are cleaning net not making it worse. Ban
58. Kuwait777: Full of women photos. Ane besides, 777 is a registered trademark ;)
59. Ahram.org.eg: They require authentication! They must be hiding something from us. Ban
60. Kuwait University: We are still not happy with separated classes, mixed college. Also, you can search for women teacher phone numbers there. Ban until they are completely separated.
61. Fastelco: What’s that lady doing at your main site? And this is also another door to all corruption out there. Force them to block their sites, and then close them down
62. Zain: Zain is a wonderful world as the claim, distracting people from the immortal life after death. They should know better
63. Alrai Media: Their Ramadan contest is offensive (and silly if you ask me!). Block it
64. Ministry of Education: Well, they do teach music in Schools. Also, the site will list all wome schools, making it tempting to go after girls
65. BBC: If we blok YouTube, they talk about us. Let’s block them so we don’t hear them
66. te3p: Bluetooth, clips, photos. Disqualified
67. itrackit: Directory listing error. We don’t need you anyways
68. Clicksor: Uncensored Ads. Ban
69. Saatchi Gallery: You could fine some naked lady arts drawn on walls. Ban
70. Masrawy: Their comics are offensive to Islamic culture and ethics. Shows badly dressed women
71. Ask.com: I searched for “Is Islam Good?” and it gave me anti-Islamic results :(. Ban and sue them
72. ValueClick Media: Another uncensored ad site. Block
73. Ministry of Interior: Not block. ENJOY :). I suggest introducing extra charge for internet users wh want to use this site as extra feature
74. CNET Downloads: You can download offensive games from here
75. Salmiya.net: Place for song downloads. Block please
76. Islamweb: There, satisfying all needs. Not blocked. 
77. Galdiatus: Not only half-naked warriors, but you can visually interact with opposite sex in the virtual world. If she wers hejab OK, otherwise welcome to the naughty list
78. GameSpot: Didin’t we already say no game sites?
79. Islamway: Approved. This is getting too useful. Maybe internet is not so bad after all. We should riase our prices
80. Rediff: Indian actors and celebs, vidoes as well. Not good. Not good at all
81. Gamezer: It basically allows you to play games against the opposite sex? BLOCK
82. My Ege: Islamic clips. But also, movie and game trailers, clips. Block
83. Lakii: This is a very nice site for women. My wife gets recipes from it all the time. But what’s with the beauty crap section? Block. No, I don’t need to check it first
84. Z7mh: movies, celebrities, mixed forums. Blocked
85. Adobe: This is basically a software, that could eventually allow you to open harmful documents. I don’t feel like giving it to the naive public. I vote block it
86. United Networks: Another portal to the world of offensive content. Block it
87. al-wlid: Forum directory, listing Hanan Dashti Makeup bride photos. Block
88. m5zn: Private file sharing again! Banner for lover forums. Block
89. Alazrag: A complete site supporting those above-knee short players. And besides, we don’t want people to know we still have national team or intend ot have one. Block it

UPDATE: Apparently, the guy who signed off the letter didn’t even take the ministry approval before making this decision.

P.S: I got slashdoted hardly for misspelling a critical word :). Prophet fixed!

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YouTube for most parts of the world is the magical mirror on the web. You tell it what you want, and it will show it. I stopped downloading clips to my computer but in rare cases, cause they are all on the net ready for quick streaming anytime/anywhere.

Recently however, this message started showing gradually more often:

At first, I would go to the top left, click on Worldwide -> Worldwide (All Regions) and it would work. It would solve it, it’s a bit annoying, and it would make embedded videos mostly useless but as links to original video url. Now, even that Worldwide option is not working, and more and more videos are being blocked. And I’m not talking about offensive content, or even debatable content. Regular trailers, video game music play, such as the one above, and many such similar things. If those videos are banned for all regions, then why am I able to see them using a proxy? Because those videos are only not availale in Kuwait, and I’m not sure on what basis and on who’s request are those videos being blocked. Is MOC hiring full time employees just randomly picking videos to be banned! This is seriously making YouTube non-usable, or else so annoying to use. Another thing is, why wouldn’t YouTube be clear with their message “This video is no longer available in your area”. Their message is kind of decieving.

People who were not aware of it, anoter big video streaming site, VEOH has also blocked all Kuwait traffic as well.

My first guess was, maybe it’s porn flooded video site, but the main page shows nothing more than youTube does, perhaps even less offensive in some cases. Does it have porn videos? I would bet yes, same as all other video sites. But it’s also a great place for video games videos. Why would the site stop all traffic from Kuwait, and not even response to my inquiry about it. They probably got sick from us they don’t even care anymore. Does MOC have that strong influence? Why wouldn’t MOC just block it through our ISPs then?

Beware China, here we come.

UPDATE: As some people suggested in the comments, the YouTube problem does seem to be related to Qnet only. Problem seems to be cleared now. Let’s hope.

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I only heard yesterday that MOC has blocked Skype. I thought of searching for rational reasons behind blocking a voice service rather than throw all my week’s burden on MOC blindly. So here goes. Why did the MOC block Skype?

1. Because it became a dating service?

But there are many ways for opposite sexes to communicate, and then they can easily just use cell phone, or any other voice service, like MSN. MSN is not blocked. 

2. Because it’s one of those BAD PHENOMENONS our perliment formed an official committe of 5 (Team-5) to fight?

Nooo… Again there are lots of other VoIP services out there, and I don’t recall them raising it. They have more important things to do right? We’re talking about millions of KDs these days. You know what I mean

3. Because it eats bandwidth?

Well, YouTube is surely more bandwidth intensive.

Why then? Why? Skype has been available for years, and there was nothing against it. And just when PayPal was opened in Kuwait, and I thought we are moving forwar.. Ohhh. Wait a minute! PayPal allows you to pay for Skype PC-to-Phone credits, which then allows you to make cheap international calls, without paying anything to the ministry. Before, PayPal was blocked and payment to Skype was blocked. So now that they opened a payment option, they have to go and knock down each and every site they have, allowing payment through that gateway!

I knew there must be a logical explanation behind all of this. Our MOC won’t do things blindly and for no good reason. Ahh, now I’m relaxed. I have even came up with a better plan. To be fair for people with different tastes, who may have beenhappy with Skype and didn’t care a lot for PayPal:

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