What do you do when you’re sitting around in Dubai and have a couple of minutes to spare? Exactly- you log in to Actics!

That’s what our intrepid reporter Neils Peter from experience design lab did. Or rather: he tried to, but then he got hit by the following message:

Actics blocked in the UAE

That’s right: Actics has been banned in the United Arab Emirates!

But why? What is it about us that is “inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates”? Eager to find some answers, I checked out the OpenNet Initiative, which is a great site on internet filtering and surveillance, and had a look at their country profile of the UAE.

As it turns out, the UAE are extremely active on the internet filtering front. To give a few examples: they block all sites in the top-level domain “.il” (no prizes for guessing what country that belongs to). They pervasively filter pornography, gambling, and sites promoting alcohol and drug use. And they also selectively filter sites that “express alternative political or religious views”. So is that what they found so objectionable about Actics: the fact that we “facilitate ideas” that are potentially “in breach of the general order”?

Whatever the case, the whole affair certainly adds a nice dose of glamour to Actics. YouTube is blocked in Iran and the BBC in Myanmar- and now we have made it into the big league, too! I’m tempted to say that it calls for a drink- but since that might get us banned by another 7 countries I should probably keep quiet.