In order to stave off 'popular upheaval,' the Syrian government may be lifting a four-year ban on YouTube and Facebook, allowing Internet users to access the sites without a proxy server or VPN.

Internet users told the Associated Press on Tuesday that they were able to access the sites for the first time in years without using an international proxy server. Government officials have not commented publicly, but Syria's Forward Magazine on Tuesday also said it had received confirmation that the ban was being lifted.

According to The Guardian, the move is aimed at appeasing the local population.

The Syrian government slapped a firewall on both sites in 2007 to prevent so-called "Israeli penetration," but the ban has done little to stop local users from signing in through other means. Even Syria's 35-year-old first lady, Asma al-Assad, maintains multiple Facebook pages.

Andrew Noyes, manager of public policy communications at Facebook said, "We have always seen some traffic from Syria, although we have not seen user growth that we typically in a country with this level of Internet penetration. We have not seen changes in traffic."

Google did not comment officially, but according to its Transparency Report, traffic from Syria has not dipped significantly since the official ban.

In a Thursday webcast hosted by digital activist group Access, Jillian York with the Harvard University Berkman Center pointed to Syria as a country with the most potential for using the Web as a rallying point, despite its filtering.