Ben Ali's biggest mistake was censoring our website.
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تقريظ ليس تاريخاً — إنه موقف.
وُلد في تونس عام ١٩٩٦، في مواجهة رقابة نظام بن علي على الإنترنت،
وفي رفض لكل من يمنع الكلمة الحرة.
من الفضاء الإلكتروني إلى الشارع — كنا هناك.
المعركة لم تنتهِ. شكلها تغيّر.
Takriz n'est pas une archive. C'est une posture.
Né en Tunisie en 1996, contre la censure d'internet sous Ben Ali,
contre tout pouvoir qui contrôle ce que les gens peuvent dire et savoir.
Du cyberespace à la rue — nous étions là.
Le combat n'est pas terminé. Sa forme a changé.
Takriz is not an archive. It is a posture.
Born in Tunisia in 1996, against internet censorship under Ben Ali,
against any power that controls what people can say and know.
From cyberspace to the street — we were there.
The fight is not over. Its form has changed.
Co-founded in Tunisia as a cyber think tank and activist network. Internet freedom, anti-censorship operations, resistance to the Ben Ali regime. The government blocked our website within weeks. We kept going.
Hunted, exiled, jailed. Takriz members could enter Tunisia only with extreme caution. Operations continued from exile. The movement built relationships with unions, lawyers, students, street youth, and Ultra soccer fans — the ones who knew how to fight.
Ben Ali's 2009 re-election was the last straw. Takriz intensified operations — online and on the ground. Building networks, channeling information, bypassing censorship, preparing the streets.
Active operational element of the Tunisian revolution of January 14, 2011. Online every day, on the streets every day. Collecting information, organizing protests, channeling videos to Al Jazeera, working with labor unions, the Ultras, and local networks across the interior. Ben Ali fled. 300 Tunisians died.
The technology has changed. The question hasn't: who controls the information layer, and what do they do with that control? Takriz is still watching.
The primary documented account of Takriz's role in the Tunisian revolution. Foetus and Waterman, Takriz's founders, granted rare access to journalist John Pollock. The piece traces the movement's arc from 1996 through the fall of Ben Ali.
Read the article →Takriz and its methods have been referenced in academic research on the Arab Spring, digital activism, and the role of social media in political mobilization. The movement's combination of online and offline strategies has been studied as a model for decentralized organizing.
We were at the beginning of the internet. We understand, from the inside, what it means when a technology genuinely redistributes power — who gains, who resists, what the inflection point looks like from the ground.
AI is that moment again. Faster. Larger. And with far less room for error.
The question is the same: who decides what people can say, know, and do — and what are they building to make sure the answer stays theirs?
Takriz is still asking.