Can porn be accessed in the U.A.E?

[Calico Jack]

The reasom I'm asking is that my partner is considering applying for a job in Abu Dhabi ,working there for 12 months will all expenses paid. It's a terrific opportunity and would be quite an expirience for the family.
I recall recieiving mail once form someone who lived in Dubai saying that the state filtered all porn and any other sites deemed questionable.
Can anyone confirm or deny that?
Are their any webmaster here at GFY who've operated/updated their sites whilst living or visiting there?
I'm just curious as to the legalities of doing so.
Thanks in advance.

[geeknik]

http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/uae/

It's a bit dated, but it might give you guys some insight.

The UAE uses the SmartFilter filtering software to block nearly all pornography, gambling, religious conversion, and illegal drugs sites tested. The state also blocks access to all sites in the Israeli top-level domain. ONI's testing of the UAE filtering regime also found blocking of sites on the Bahai faith, Middle East-oriented gay and lesbian issues, and English-language (though not Arabic-language) dating sites. While our results did not indicate that UAE uses its filtering system to block political sites, or news and media sources, we conclude that the state's broad content controls unintentionally block information unrelated to UAE's stated goals. The imprecision of the UAE filtering regime underscores the difficulty of extensive technical filtering of Internet content.

[Shoplifter]

Use a VPN.

[Calico Jack]

Originally Posted by geeknik

http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/uae/

It's a bit dated, but it might give you guys some insight.

Most informative...thanks for that! Most appreciated!

[Calico Jack]

Originally Posted by geeknik

http://www.opennetinitiative.net/studies/uae/

It's a bit dated, but it might give you guys some insight.

Most informative...thanks for that! Most appreciated!

[geeknik]

No prob!

[pornask]

I have an Aussie friend who is temporarily in Aby Dhabi and not only can she not access porn, I wanted to show her a site which sells t-shirts and she couldn't get to it because it was censored. The internet company just blocks it, and there is only one company for the whole country.

Also, anything to do with movies, music, tv, etc is blocked. You will simply get a big red sign accross your screen saying that the page is blocked:

We apologize the site you are attempting to visit has been blocked due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates.

You can read her rants about how frustrating it is here and here.

[chodadog]

Will be slower, but get yourself a Windows server and log into it using remote desktop and work from there. As long as you have a decent net connection while you're over there, you shouldn't have any problems.