A friend of mine is visting a relative in Abu Dhabi and sent me this priceless screen shot, which he got when he was trying to access YouTube.
![i-0b4a08edf53f8c3cda92f7798d85ecf7-dhabi%20regulators[1].JPG](http://scienceblogs.com/retrospectacle/wp-content/blogs.dir/463/files/2012/04/i-0b4a08edf53f8c3cda92f7798d85ecf7-dhabi%20regulators[1].JPG)
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The silliness about Morgellons and Marc Neumann continues. This time around, it's someone sending me e-mail from Dr. Rolando Arafile's website. In my e-mail last night I found this gem:
From: "Health2Fit" health@health2fit.net
Subject: Violation
Date: February 12, 2010 3:54:59 PM EST
To: "Orac"…
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Hmmm, it seems even Big Brother has customer service. Why is that the creepiest part?
I am sure there is content on YouTube that is inconsistent with the values of the UAE. I am equally sure there is a wealth of content on YouTube that is educational, informative, interesting and inspiring. One of your recent postings featured a surgical video from YouTube. There are many ethical and moral arguments you can make against censorship. The more practical argument seems to be that you lose more than you gain when you deny people access to the world around them.
Somehow I get the funny feeling that filling out that feedback form might be a really bad idea....
Well, at least some "inconsistent" sites must get through. I've had readers from UAE before; YouTube isn't everything. Just some of the most fun, inspiring, educational and wacky parts.
My eyebrow is raised at how it is not just one reason. It's "religious, cultural, political and moral". I mean, even cultural? Shelley called it. Scrubbed is the right word.
I get hits every so often from Saudi Arabia. Perhaps their scrubber needs cleaning. :)
I wonder if they were using a land line? It seems to me that blocking a signal from a satellite to the public would be a much more difficult task.
Dave Briggs :~)
There's only one ISP in UAE, and not surprisingly its government owned, so its fairly easy then to censor the net. However, the mildly resourceful person to do some tunneling tricks to bypass the censors. Oddly, UAE blocked my personal videos, which are really innocuous amateur rocket videos. Youtube, as a whole, is not blocked. Neither, unfortunately is retrospectacle. So Shelley can go on corrupting the citizens of Abu Dhabi.
I get a lot of hits on my site from people in Muslim countries looking for really weird stuff. Guess I have a weird site. HHmmmm...