Internet War in Lebanon

As if the fights on the streets were not enough, we also witnessed fights in the Internet world. Message boards turned into battlefields and news website turned into propaganda machine attacking the opposite side. These didn’t seem to be enough; it was time for hacking.

From the time I started following Lebanese politics from sites on the Internet, I saw attacks on certain sites. For example, Free Patriotic Movement’s official site (tayyar.org) was attacked more than once. A notable attack that placed the site offline was on January 23, 2007 which was the day in which the opposition protested all over Lebanon.

Lately and before days from the Labor Union’s protest, a pro-loyalist site called LebSpy and an independent news source (leaning towards the opposition) called elnashra were hacked. The first one got a message having General Aoun’s and Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s pictures while the second site was filled with Saad Hariri pictures.

During the fights, LebSpy kept on being hacked on a daily basis while elnashra’s was not being attacked. Few days ago Lebanese Forces official website wrote about being attacked and they switched to a simpler page to avoid similar attacks. On the other hand, Al-Diyar’s website got hacked and the hacker placed humiliating pictures of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

When will such attacks stop? When will Lebanese think about helping each other to create a better community on the Internet?