The Netizen Report offers an international snapshot of challenges, victories, and emerging trends in internet rights around the world. It originally appears each week on Global Voices Advocacy. Afef Abrougui, Ellery Roberts Biddle, Weiping Li, James Losey, and Sarah Myers West contributed to this report.

Journalists in Cuba have evidence that the Cuban government is monitoring and selectively blocking mobile SMS messages based on certain keywords such as “human rights,” “hunger strike,” “plebiscite,” and “state security.” According to a report issued Sept. 3 by journalists Yoani Sanchez and Reinaldo Escobar, who run the Havana-based media outlet 14ymedio, text messages containing a range of sensitive keywords, along with the names of various high-profile anti-Castro activists, are not reaching their destinations. However, as they explain in a report on 14ymedio, the messages still appear as ‘sent’ on the sender’s telephone.

According to technologist and opposition blogger Eliecer Avila, at least 30 keywords have been identified as triggers for the blocking mechanism. It is not clear how long this has been in place. The journalists have not yet shared a full list of terms tested, nor did they indicate whether they believe the blocking is being targeted to specific users. Sanchez, Escobar, and Avila are all very high-profile opposition voices.

The discovery comes at a moment in which Cuban bloggers and independent journalists are facing increasing scrutiny and, in some cases, public condemnation, by leading government and Cuban communist party officials. Diario de Cuba writer Maykel González Vivero, who is also a vocal advocate for LGBTQ rights on the island, was fired from his job with state radio station Radio Sagua two weeks ago for collaborating with “private media.” In late August, the well-established Uruguayan blogger and former BBC journalist Fernando Ravsberg, who has lived in Cuba since the mid-1990s and has a family there, was publicly condemned on television by the vice president of Cuba’s Press Workers’ Union, who she charged with offending the sentiments of “decent Cubans.”

Russian authorities jail Pokémon Go player for offending religious people
Ruslan Sokolovsky was jailed in early September for playing Pokémon Go inside a Russian Orthodox cathedral and posting a video of it on YouTube. Police are investigating the 21-year-old video blogger for committing extremism, offending religious people, and “violating the right to religion in a house of worship.”* If convicted of the charges, he could go to prison for up to five years. The video (now with English subtitles) has garnered more than 1.3 million views on YouTube.

On Sept. 7, Sokolovsky complained that a prison psychiatrist threatened his life in jail, warning that he could be institutionalized “where they don’t let the lawyers in.” Government investigators have also revealed that they discovered a camera-pen at his home—technology that is illegal in Russia. The media is describing the device as a “spy pen,” complementing allegations by pro-government bloggers that Sokolovsky’s atheist activism online and in the media is part of a larger, coordinated campaign by nefarious forces, designed to weaken Russia’s traditional values. He has since been released and placed under house arrest.

Algerian court upholds activist conviction over Charlie Hebdo link
An Algerian appeals court upheld the conviction of activist Slimane Bouhafs, decreasing his jail sentence from five to three years. Bouhafs originally was sentenced to five years in jail and a fine of 100,000 Algerian dinars (about $917) for “offending the Prophet” and “denigrating the creed and precepts of Islam” for linking to a cartoon by the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo depicting the Prophet Mohammed crying.

Web journalist arrested in Venezuela
Chilean-Venezuelan journalist and lawyer Braulio Jatar is being held by Venezuelan authorities on charges of money laundering. Jatar, who is the director of the investigative news site Reporte Confidencial, was detained during a protest in the locality of Villa Rosa that forced President Nicolas Maduro to leave the city. Jatar’s supporters believe his coverage of the protest are the real reason he is in custody.

Another one bites the dust: Saudi Arabia bans LINE messaging app
The Saudi government added LINE to the long list of VOIP services and messaging apps blocked in the country, which includes Viber, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, and Skype. Responding to the block, Saudi users took to Twitter to protest the government’s strict Internet censorship policies, asking “what’s the point of having Internet?”

Surprise, surprise: New Snowden leaks reveal more mind-blowing surveillance tools
The Intercept released new documents from the Snowden leaks that reveal how the NSA aided “ ‘a significant number of capture-kill operations’ across the Middle East and North Africa, fueled by powerful eavesdropping technology that can harvest data from more than 300 million emails and phone calls a day.”

New Research

“High Impact Questions and Opportunities for Online Harassment Research and Action”—Nate Matias, MIT Center for Civic Media

“The Biggest Lie on the Internet: Ignoring the Privacy Policies and Terms of Service Policies of Social Networking Services”—Jonathan Obar and Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch

*Correction, Sept. 19, 2016: This post originally misstated that Ruslan Sokolovsk was arrested in early August. He was arrested in early September. The post also misstated that he was still in police custody; he is now under house arrest.