UAE bloggers protected by Journalists' Association

A new article says that UAE bloggers will be protected from prosecution by a union of sorts, provided (of course), they follow a code of ethics:

"Bloggers and "virtual" journalists have the right to be protected by the Journalists' Association, provided they abide by the ethics code, including stating of facts and sources of information, avoiding defaming without tangible proof, or provoking hostility arising from religious, sectarian or race discriminations," Yousuf said.

Mohammad Yousuf, President of the UAE Journalists' Association, also said that full-time, dedicated bloggers will be allowed membership of the association.

So the question is really, who is a "full-time, dedicated" blogger? Again, in previous debates regarding this, does it include personal blogs that ocassionally do political commentary and controversial topics, or only those that are "journalistic"? And what is considered "provoking hostility arising from religious, sectarian or race discriminations"? Expats whining about locals, or vice-versa, or both? Does all of this also include comments?

It seems like a step in the right directon for sure, but certain things still seem a bit vague to me.

UAE bloggers on Sharjah

The National Magazine makes reference to this blog and also to secretdubai's blog a few months ago...

"If you search for Sharjah-related posts on the various blogs at www.uaecommunity.blogspot.com, the general tone is one of disdain. The emirate is routinely described as pre-modern, primarily because of the authors’ presumption that the “decency laws” make the place as puritanical as Saudi Arabia. On www.secretdubaidiary.blogspot.com, a banned but still popular site, Sharjah is almost always referred to as “the stone-age emirate”.

Rest of article can be found: here

Ford - Middle East Bloggers - Did they Contact You To Assist With Their Campaign?

According to a story in Emirates Business 24/7 the Middle East bloggers failed to respond at all to their oh so clever social media marketing campaign...

"Ford is to count on the efforts of 100 bloggers to launch its new Fiesta model. However, Middle East Ford officials said they won't be able to replicate the innovative campaign here as they feel blogger marketing in the region still lags behind other cyber marketing tools."

"According to Ford, the campaign was the first of its kind in the automotive segment. Bloggers invited to offer their inputs from around the region, however, generated no response."

I suggest the failure was not Middle East bloggers failing to respond, or be ready for such an initiative, I suggest the failure was in their communication and engagement of the Middle East blogger community.

As a little experiment - I'd like to ask did anyone here know of this campaign, see their Facebook page, follow them on Twitter or most pertinently be directly asked by Ford to participate.

Further reading and commentary at the ever reliable Fake Plastic Souks

Responses please...

New members

I just found a stack of emails I had overlooked processing from people who wanted to become UAE comm members. Really sorry to you all for the delay.

Don't forget to encourage any friends/family that blog or are interested in blogging to become members. Joining UAE community is an easy way to be involved with blogging without having to necessarily have your own blog.

There's a New Blog in Town!

A GLOBALISED GUIDE TO THE BEST IN FOOD: COOKING IT, EATING IT AND ENJOYING IT!

The Fat Expat is a new Blog dedicated to broadcasting the lunatic babbling of not one but two blogging types to the world. Yes, Alexander and HalfManHalfBeer are collaborating on a new Blog designed to indulge our shared unhealthy and obsessive interest in all things food-related.. We’ll be blogging about food, restaurants, recipes, ingredients. Anything that you can pop into the old bouche, in fact. We’ll be arguing with each other (including a planned series of ‘head to head’ recipe wars) and possibly with some of the restaurants and hotels we’ve been reviewing, too! And we’ll be bringing you a passion for food that we hope you enjoy reading and interacting with. With a little luck this project will grow with time and become smarter and more sophisticated.

The Fat Expat will contain regularly posted recipes, articles about food, restaurant reviews and more. More? Yes! More!

We’re aiming to have a great deal of fun with the format, including special promotions, cook-offs, recipe competitions and, I hope, an increasingly off-the-wall selection of content. There are already over 100 recipes posted up there in the archive, more than yer average cook-book, and we’re hoping to add loads more, together with bringing more contributors to the Blog.

So if you like Arabic food, pies, barbecues, eating out around the world, reading cranky restaurant reviews or prefer to dabble in a delicious assortment of Asian splendours then drop on by to the The Fat Expat!

The first legal action against a website owner in the UAE

Just because we blog, we should not think ourselves to be safer than other website users. Link here.

The court modified the charges pressed against the two Emiratis, the supervisor of the website and the writer, to public defaming crime from publishing news about people over the internet.

A few weeks later, another official complained against the same website.

Misdemeanour Court sentenced the supervisor to a year in prison. The website will pay Dh50,000 in fine and Dh20,000 in compensation to the official. The website was closed down.

This is extremely worrying to me as an Emirati, that our freedoms in this country, such as a freedom of speech, and tolerance for a different opinion is being eroded. And that it is being replaced by agressive and intolerant values such as these.

I advise those who have mentioned any officials in their blog to conduct an immediate edit of their posts and save whatever posts they intend to delete.

UAE Bloggers to become radio stars?

Just a heads up to the community that myself (An Englishman in Dubai) and Chris Saul (Christopher Saul's Weblog) have been invited as guests to the lunchtime show on Eye on Dubai 103.8. The topic will about the blogging phenomenon with particularly reference to the UAE.

The show will be for an hour sometime between 12-2pm, Tuesday May 8th. It will be co-hosted by Paddy Smith (Editor of Stuff Middle East) and Siobhan Leyden (Eye on Dubai presenter) alongside Sim Whatley and JC Butler of Dubizzle and Gail Potter previously from the Bridgit Jones club.

I hope to provide some entertaining input into this show and I hope some of the community can tune in and provide input too via SMS and email during the show.

NYT: call for civility in the blogosphere

Many of you may have seen it since it was printed April 9, but the New York Times ran a story about a group that is seeking to come up with a code of conduct for writers of blog posts and blog comments. The topic is central to the mission of UAE community forum, and we've had recent posts on the subject.

Here's the NYT article. Here's a snip:

Mr. O’Reilly and Mr. Wales talk about creating several sets of guidelines for conduct and seals of approval represented by logos. For example, anonymous writing might be acceptable in one set; in another, it would be discouraged. Under a third set of guidelines, bloggers would pledge to get a second source for any gossip or breaking news they write about.

Bloggers could then pick a set of principles and post the corresponding badge on their page, to indicate to readers what kind of behavior and dialogue they will engage in and tolerate. The whole system would be voluntary, relying on the community to police itself.

“If it’s a carefully constructed set of principles, it could carry a lot of weight even if not everyone agrees,” Mr. Wales said.

The code of conduct already has some early supporters, including David Weinberger, a well-known blogger (hyperorg.com/blogger) and a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. “The aim of the code is not to homogenize the Web, but to make clearer the informal rules that are already in place anyway,” he said

I think one of the women pictured for the article is Secret Dubai. Just kidding.

Blogs of Note

Secret Dubai is listed under Blogs of Note today/yesterday by Blogger.

Way to go SD.

How to blog it

Is blogging here like the West? No of course not, but that's the point; understand what's possible, and what will cause you strife, and your blogging future should remain bright.

So concludes ArabianBusiness.com journalist Matthew Wade's article on blogging in the region.

Read it here.

*Those little Update Stars*

Do you want to know how to activate those little update stars so that UAE Community Blog readers can tell that your blog has been updated?

Click here to find out how to do it.

Secret Dubai nominated

Congratulations to Secret Dubai Diary for being nominated as a finalist in the Best African or Middle Eastern weblog category!

Click here to view all categories and finalists, and don't forget to vote while you're there!

The Top 5 UAE Bloggers - Emirates Evening Post

1 - Secret Dubai
2 - Dubai Daily Photo
3 - Dubai Consumer Mirror
4 - Grapeshisha
5 - UAE Community

Some notable omissions there perhaps... quite shocked frankly at being included...!

What's your top 5 UAE blogs?

Instalanched?

Will our very own brn receive an Instalanche as a result of this link? The UAE Community blog is proud of you, brn.

Gulf News look at the ME blogosphere reaction to Saddam execution

Here.