The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is the peaceful oasis surrounded by the Middle East’s distress. Beautiful to its core (though not as lucky as its neighbors in terms of oil resources), tourism is one of Jordan’s main sources of revenue – especially when it comes to medical tourism, where Jordan is the region’s top destination and fifth in the world. But though Jordan may be one of the most modern countries in the Middle East, tradition is still trying to catch up: the government remains a monarchy, and the king retains extensive executive and legislative powers. Moreover, since defamation is considered a crime (and can throw you in prison), self-censorship is common, especially when it comes to commentary about the royal family. Additionally, blockage of websites is nothing new in Jordan, which makes the use of a VPN service crucial while visiting or living in this country.
Besides gaining access to some streaming services like Netflix, there are not many reasons to use a Jordanian IP since most national websites are open worldwide, including TV and radio stations’ live streaming.
However, there are many reasons to use a VPN provider while in Jordan, whether for protection or to reach blocked content. For example, operators are forced by law to have the necessary infrastructure enabling them to track communications, and although operators are not supposed to monitor citizens at free will, Jordanians understandably feel that someone is always eavesdropping on their conversations. There are also many websites – national and foreign – that find their access to the country blocked for reasons from not having a license to errors made by the blocking commission.
Jordan does not have a data protection law in place, but the constitution defends the privacy of Jordanians. The legal document states that any communication shall be regarded as secret and shall not be subject to censorship, viewing, suspension, or confiscation except by judicial order.
However, several laws permit the monitoring of citizens’ activities. Under telecommunication law, operators have to take appropriate measures to enable the tracking of communications upon judicial or administrative order. Moreover, the antiterrorism law allows the prosecutor general to order monitoring on someone upon receiving “reliable information” that “a person or group of persons is connected to any terrorist activity”. Unsurprisingly, Jordanians believe that security services closely monitor online comments, cataloging these by date, IP address, and location.
Fortunately, there are no reports against virtual private networks, and VPNs are legal to use within the country. Of course, we advise against using them for illegal activities.
Freedom House ranks Jordan’s Internet as partly free, with content limitations and violation of user rights being the main issues within the country.
Since 2015, messaging applications are blocked on days that secondary school students take their national exams. Some of the unreachable apps are WhatsApp, Messenger, Twitter, and Instagram, but these restrictions are limited to locations near the examination halls and only for a couple of hours.
Though that’s not a big deal, it’s also true that the government has increasingly censored critical coverage in recent years. Jordanian law criminalizes speech considered critical of the king, government officials and institutions, foreign countries, and Islam, as well as other types of defamation. Such regulation entices news outlets and citizens to practice self-censorship both offline and online, since websites are forced to keep a record of all comments for six months after initial publication, and to curate any ‘untruthful’ or ‘irrelevant’ commentaries.
The head of the Media Commission can block any news website for failing to obtain a license or for violating Jordanian law. Due to the government’s definition of a news website, this blockage can include any local or international websites, blogs, portals, or social networks. However, it’s worth noting that Facebook, WhatsApp, and other social media services were crucial for the 2018 nationwide strike that led to the resignation of the government, and none of these websites were blocked during that period.
Nevertheless, some individuals have been detained or faced criminal charges due to their online activities. Moreover, with the Cybercrime Law amendment to explicitly cover hate speech still on the table, things are not looking good for the future of Jordanian freedom of expression. Since the bill has a vague definition, it would allow authorities to persecute anyone who addresses controversial issues, which would of course further constrain the freedom of online speech.
Jordanian national television is mostly covered by free-to-air satellite channels, and it’s common for TV stations to also provide online broadcasting. However, the use of a VPN is not essential since those broadcasts are available worldwide. So unless the country you are in blocks content from Jordan, you won’t have any problems accessing live content through the channel’s website or its YouTube channel.
However, international streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video do not work the same way, so a Jordanian IP is needed in order to reach their Jordanian libraries.
Netflix alone has around 180 TV shows and 450 movies available for its Jordanian users. Although the media faces censorship such as the removal of sex scenes, Arabic Netflix originals like the controversial Jinn are an excellent reason to watch Netflix from this country and see that its youngsters are not so different from those living in the West.
As there are not many reasons to access the internet with a Jordanian IP, there are few VPN providers with servers in the country. Nevertheless, while in Jordan it is vital to use a VPN with strong security due to the probability of having the government monitoring you.
First of all, please do not feel intimidated: the perhaps vulgar name of the UK-based company is intended to be a pun. HMA VPN has a mascot in the form of a donkey, and thus this little wordplay is nothing to worry about. You should rather pay attention to the fact that HMA VPN is easily one of the best VPN companies today; they offer much more than a standard package. You are also welcome to try out the free web proxy, an anonymous e-mail service and an IP:Port premium service, which is essentially a more elaborate proxy product. On top of this, you also have VPN browser extensions for Chrome and Mozilla to use. HMA VPN does all this while still maintaining decent speeds and healthy prices. These are coupled with the fact that HMA VPN remains one of few providers who still enable access to Netflix. But the most impressive thing about this organization is the number of locations provided – it is unprecedented today.
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