More than half of all the arrests have been made in China, Egypt and Iran with prison sentences given to many. The average prison sentence for blogging was 15 months and the longest sentence found by the WIA was eight years!

Its not just the Middle East bloggers though – in the last four years, British, French, Canadian and American bloggers have also been arrested.  Arrests tend to increase during times of political uncertainty – so with upcoming elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US, arrests are predicted to high an all time high.

For more details about the report visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7456357.stm

26 year-old IT engineer Fouad Mourtada, has been arrested in Morocco for making a fake Facebook profile. According to FaceReviews, he made a profile page for Prince Moulay Rachid, the younger brother of King Mohammed VI. Although ths profile was only done in jest, like most countries with monarchies, Morocco didn’t like him poking fun at the Prince.

So, Mourtada is now in jail facing up to 5 years in prison, as the authorities consider such a joke to be classified as identity theft. The sad thing is though, how much you can be punished for making a stupid fake profile on an intangible, web-based social network. I mean, how many times have you come across a fake profile for Paris Hilton, or Rupert Murdoch? Thank goodness Forbes didn’t take Daniel Lyons, the man behind the Fake Steve Jobs blog, too seriously.

Anyway, we don’t think that the fake Facebook profile was worth it somehow! So if you are someone that’s into making fake Facebook profiles and are the least bit worried about being arrested and prosecuted, just make a Facebook group or a wiki instead. At the most, you’ll get all of Facebook shut down for your entire country.