[3] Nawaat aggregates articles, visual media, and other data from a variety of sources to provide a forum for citizen journalists to express their opinions on current events.

During the events leading to the Tunisian Revolution of 2011, Nawaat advised Internet users in Tunisia and other Arab nations about the dangers of being identified online and offered advice about circumventing censorship.

Nawaat has received numerous awards from international media organizations in the wake of the Arab Spring wave of revolutions throughout the Middle East and North Africa.

The site went online on April 5, 2004, as a forum for Tunisian citizens and diaspora to be able to express themselves free of censorship from the government of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.

[7] ATI would block users' attempts to access Nawaat with Smartfilter software manufactured by the United States company Secure Computing, displaying a standard 404 "File Not Found" error message on their web browsers.

[2] Some of Nawaat's earliest contributions focused on election fraud and other forms of disenfranchisement during the re-election of Ben Ali in 2004, which the incumbent won with 94.49% of the popular vote.

[8] In addition, Nawaat aggregated a variety of commentaries exploring the role of Islam in government and contemporary relations between Arab nations and the Western world.

[11] One of Nawaat's innovative contributions during the revolution was identifying and translating videos and personal accounts of potential media interest that were distributed on Facebook and other social networking sites.

Sami Ben Gharbia noted that one of the goals of Nawaat was to bridge the gap between collective action through social media and more traditional protest movement tactics.

In addition, Nawaat has focused efforts on training activists in Internet technology, assisting NGOs with similar missions, monitoring elections, and continuing to publish content on human rights and social issues.

In collaboration with GlobaLeaks, the Nawaat team created a special page that deploys a number of open source applications and techniques which protect those leaking confidential documents and files.

He is listed on Foreign Policy magazine's 100 Most Influential Global Thinkers for 2011, and shares the 24th rank with Daniel Domscheit-Berg (a former deputy of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange) and Russian lawyer Alexey Navalny.

This was in protest against Bahrain’s Internet filtering practices, arrest of bloggers and human rights activists, and blocking of websites and blogs that criticize the Bahraini government and ruling family.