[liberationtech] Facebook and Twitter Blocked in Egypt?

Wed Jan 26 08:50:28 PST 2011

Hi:

We have an alpha site called Stroome.com that can be used for video  
remixing and I have just set up a group called "Egypt Protests" so  
that anyone who wants to upload video for sharing and remixing with  
each other can do so.  I set it up for someone who runs an  
organization called Soliya.

Since it is alpha, user flow isn't perfect yet (we won a Knight  
Foundation grant and will be relaunching in April).  Here's the basic  
tutorial:

First you must get an account and join the group "Egypt Protests."

After you've uploaded the video (click Mix it Up button) and then  
returned back into the Stroome environment, you must click on the  
"settings and permissions" text underneath the video.  Now scroll down  
the page until you see the box that has two columns.  Click the box  
for "Egypt Protests" in the RIGHT COLUMN "My groups can view and  
edit."  That will allow everyone to be able to see the video, edit the  
video and push it out to the social networks of their choice.

WE HAVE NOT SET UP ANY SECURITY FIREWALLS but because we are under the  
radar, I presume we will not be blocked (yet.)

best,

Nonny de la Peña
Senior Research Fellow
Immersive Journalism
USC Annenberg School of Journalism
M: 310 749 0010
SKYPE:  Nonnydlp
www.NonnyDLP.com

On Jan 26, 2011, at 7:09 AM, Marcin de Kaminski wrote:

> Hello!
>
> Yes, Twitter is blocked and also Bambuser and Facebook is said to be  
> partially blocked. There is an active work rerouting the  
> informational flows at the Telecomix IRC server irc.telecomix.org  
> channel #jan25 (web chat http://chat.telecomix.org ).  Currently we  
> have several ops running:
>
> - Writing and distributing tutorials for how to find alternate ways  
> to Twitter and other means of comms.
> - Distributing VPN tunnels and ssh proxies along with instructions  
> into Egypt.
> - Saving and archiving videos from Youtube and other sites along  
> with pictures to prepare for possible deletion (which in some cases  
> already has begun) and setting up mirrors.
> - Setting up contacts with ham radio crews to get information  
> parallel to Internet based info.
> - Translating arabic tweets to english and vice versa to make sure  
> information flow stays intact.
>
> More hands are always needed. If you have some spare time, this is a  
> good cause.
>
> Best regards,
> Marcin
>
>
> 26 jan 2011 kl. 15.56 skrev Walid Al-Saqaf:
>
>> Here's more:
>> http://globalvoicesonline.org/2011/01/26/egypt-after-twitter-facebook-now-blocked/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Walid
>>
>> -----------------
>>
>> Walid Al-Saqaf
>> Founder & Administrator
>> alkasir for mapping and circumventing cyber censorship
>> https://alkasir.com
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 3:45 PM, Walid Al-Saqaf <admin at alkasir.com>  
>> wrote:
>> Thanks Jilian,
>>
>> I just got confirmation that users using EgyptNetProvider (an ISP  
>> in Egypt) has blocked both facebook.com (and its subdomains and  
>> aliases, e.g., www.facebook.com) has now been blocked and so is  
>> fbcdn.net and its subdomains, which indicate that the Egyptian ISPs  
>> resorted to IP blocking to the facebook IP range. I have not yet  
>> confirmed that whole IP ranges of facebook are blocked but I could  
>> guess that the technicians overseeing filtering are capable of  
>> listing subnets corresponding to the pool of facebook and twitter  
>> IPs.
>>
>> Did anyone see this coming?
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Walid
>>
>> -----------------
>>
>> Walid Al-Saqaf
>> Founder & Administrator
>> alkasir for mapping and circumventing cyber censorship
>> https://alkasir.com
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 3:28 PM, Jillian C. York <jilliancyork at gmail.com 
>> > wrote:
>> Hi Walid,
>>
>> I confirmed (through friends in Cairo) yesterday by noon that  
>> Twitter was blocked; Twitter confirmed the block last night around  
>> 6pm.
>>
>> I haven't received confirmations on Facebook yet.
>>
>> -Jill
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 26, 2011 at 9:25 AM, Walid Al-Saqaf <admin at alkasir.com>  
>> wrote:
>> Hello all,
>>
>> You may have followed the dramatic events in Egypt since yesterday.  
>> I have confirmations now directly through alkasir, which tracks  
>> censorship, through the Egyptian media, through a friend in Cairo.  
>> I had a look at Herdict and can tell that Twitter is reported to be  
>> blocked while facebook reports are still not enough to confirm.
>>
>> The issue is a bit unclear because there are many different ISPs  
>> operating in Egypt and hence, it may well be that not all of them  
>> are blocking those websites yet.
>>
>> Can you help out by verifying the status of those websites if you  
>> were in Cairo or through people you know in Egypt?
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Walid
>>
>> -----------------
>>
>> Walid Al-Saqaf
>> Founder & Administrator
>> alkasir for mapping and circumventing cyber censorship
>> https://alkasir.com
>>
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>> -- 
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