Egypt Blocks Facebook and Twitter Access Amid Street Protests

How do you break up major protests in your country? These days you block the efforts of protest organizers by blocking the two major means of organizing protests, Twitter and Facebook. That’s exactly what Egypt did today as their security fources continue to battle protesters with water cannons and tear gas.

On Tuesday several users reported Twitter was blocked in an effort to stop videos, photos and other written “propaganda” from being aired online, that block was then confirmed by Twitter.

Shortly after the Twitter was blocked users then began to report that Facebook was also being prevented access throughout the country, a fact confirmed by HerdictWeb a website run by Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University.

However, Facebook’s own PR team is reporting that while Facebook is aware of issues in Egypt, they have not seen a major traffic slowdown on their Egyptian website, which means the block was only given to some users or other means for accessing the site, such as proxy servers, have been discovered by Facebook’s Egyptian base.

Facebook recently gathered 90,000 RSVP’s from protesters who said they would be willing to take to the streets and with the large number of individuals who turned out in protest, it quickly becomes obvious why Egypt would target social media sites in their efforts to squash future attempts to over thrown the currently ruling party.