In Pandemic Year, Syrians Blocked From Zoom, Netflix

In Pandemic Year, Syrians Blocked From Zoom, Netflix

Journalist Zeina Shahla says she has had to turn down dozens of conferences over the past year because they were being held on Zoom, which Syria is barred from accessing - AFP

Virtual platforms like Netflix and Zoom have emerged as lifelines for a pandemic-hit world forced indoors, but in sanctioned Syria where both websites are blocked, Mohammad Habash feels increasingly disconnected.

"We are living in a bubble isolated from the outside world," the 35-year-old tech expert says from an electronics repair shop in Damascus, AFP reported.

"This isolation has meant that an entire generation of young Syrians are technologically disadvantaged compared to their global peers".

Even before the war started in 2011, tech giants like Amazon, Apple and Google couldn't freely operate in Syria because of US sanctions forbidding the export, sale or supply of goods, software, technology and services without US government authorization.

The tight restrictions, although rare, are not unique to the war-torn country. They also apply to other US-sanctioned states such as North Korea, while Iran benefits from certain exemptions.

While they were intended to weaken the Syrian government, the controls have also restricted access to an online universe that helped many cope with coronavirus confinement.

"Syrians can't access any Western platform on