[Foundation-l] Egypt: Great Firewall of China Coming Soon

[Tim Starling]

Andrew Lih wrote:
> In light of Wikimania 2008, this might be of interest.
> 
> -Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
> 
> 
> http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/06/04/egypt-great-firewall-of-china-coming-soon/
> 
> Egyptian bloggers have one hand on their keyboard and another on their
> hearts. Following a recent crackdown on bloggers and online activists
> following the April 6 unrest, some are now predicting the worse is yet
> to come.
> 
> [...]
> 
> You know what, I am getting more and more confident now, that the
> Government's next move will be filtering the Internet. I already had
> similar suspicions a long while ago, but now I am really afraid that
> they may start filtering the Internet here in Egypt very soon, they
> may block sites such as Facebook, because what's said that the April
> 6th General Strike was organized there. They may also block YouTube,
> and who knows what will they block next.
> 
> Seems that the Great Firewall of China is on its way to Egypt.

That comment was the uncorroborated speculation of an individual blogger, 
who made his comments six weeks ago, on April 23:

http://notgr33ndata.blogspot.com/2008/04/great-wall-of-egypt.html

I think I'm rather more worried about the detention and torture of online 
activists, which actually happened, than this speculation about the future.

-- Tim Starling