Digital rights groups in West Asia and North Africa grew from a few to dozens

The facts

• 1Before 2011, open source and hacker communities and a few organizations pushed for digital freedoms. In the 2000s, these groups merged, and digital rights came to be seen as part of human rights.
• 2Early regional groups included Nawaat, which emerged from the Tunisian diaspora under the Ben Ali regime, the Arab Digital Expression Foundation, which promotes creative use of technology, and SMEX, which began by teaching journalists about social media.
• 3In 2011 only a few organizations in the region focused on digital rights. Since then, dozens have appeared to work on free expression, innovation, privacy and digital security.
• 4After the Arab Spring, social media companies moved from a hands-off approach to formal but often opaque content moderation. SMEX's co-founder says that around 2012 to 2013 it began studying how internet infrastructure affects expression and privacy.
• 5SMEX co-founder Mohamad Najem says tech accountability work has not led to real results. He wants the next phase to push institutions toward digital public goods and open source software.