Pro-Israel media watchdog group Honest Reporting claimed it forced the social network Facebook to change its settings to allow Golan Heights residents to register themselves as Israeli residents.
According to their website, the group created a Facebook group called “Facebook, Golan Residents Live in Israel, not Syria” after discovering that “although the Golan falls under Israeli law, residents of the region wishing to write 'Israel' in the Hometown section of their profiles were not given the option.”
The group page said that it was “not for Facebook to decide the national origin of Golan residents.”
Since the launch of the group two weeks ago, it has grown to over 3,000 members, though numbers have dropped since Facebook changed its Golan residency settings.
Following Facebook’s decision to allow Golan residents to list Israel as their national residency, the Syrian government has reportedly blocked the site.
Arabic daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi reported on Sept. 15 that while Syrian web surfers are blocked from accessing the site, some have been able bypass the restrictions. Analysts have pointed to the Golan disagreement as an excuse by Syrian authorities to block Facebook.
This is not the first time Syria has blocked the website. In November 2007, Syrian Facebook users were unable to access the site as part of a Syrian crackdown on online political activism.
The government has blamed the social networking site for promoting attacks on authorities and a tool for Israel to infiltrate Syrian social networks.
Other sites such as Hotmail and YouTube have been blocked in the past.
© 2009 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
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