As a federation of emirates with specified powers delegated to a federal government, the UAE is essentially ruled by a royal family. Although their outlook is far more liberal than many other countries in the region, as a culture they still take many leads from the Islamic faith, particularly on issues of morality. Things like sex, drugs, alcohol, and generally having too much fun are looked down upon by many as vices imported from the west that should be avoided by the virtuous. That must make Dubai a sin city by every traditional Islamic measure.
Early on it was realized that if they were going to be importing western ex-pats en masse to build the city into the international spectacle it has become, they were going to have to put up with some of their shenanigans, just as long as they don't draw too much attention or cause them any embarrassment. In Dubai it is permissible drink as much as you like, but you'd better not be visibly intoxicated when you decide to walk out of the bar at 3am to get some fast food and happen to pass by a cop with nothing better to do. In Dubai it is also possible to pick up a prostitute of any nationality within a 3 block radius of our apartment building on the side streets of Bur Dubai, but you can't flip through the latest issue of Vogue Magazine at the supermarket without every somewhat-revealing photo of a woman having been black-magic-markerered-out by a state censor .... riiiight.
The application of censorship to the internet has been treated with a similarly uneven hand. Courtesy of a country-wide filter ironically named 'Smartfilter', all top level Israeli domains are blocked outright, regardless of content, as is any website containing what is deemed to be obscene or pornographic material. The obvious problem of course is the question of who defines what is unacceptable. In addition to it's automatic filtering software that finds and blocks websites based on keywords, Smartfilter employs a small army of censors (think of them as the internet equivalent of meter maids) who's sole purpose is to browse the web and black list objectionable content. Caught in the crossfire are community websites such as flickr, boingboing, and myspace, where anyone can contribute content - but thanks to one or two questionable posts these entire sites are blocked.
Here's a short list what gets through and what doesn't pass muster.
ok
blocked
- http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/
- http://www.flickr.com/
- http://www.boingboing.net/
- http://www.playboy.com/
It would then seem the objective of internet censorship here is to impose morality rather than ideology. But what I find most interesting is the complete lack of censorship of political discourse and dissent against the government. Rather than use brute force to control thought and opinion, the UAE has taken the western approach of having a free and relatively unregulated media where although any sentiment may be published, if it falls outside of the mainstream discourse it will quickly become marginalized and easily dismissed. As Benjamin Ginsberg was quoted by Noam Chomsky in Necessary Illusions,