Egypt Banned Porn, But How Much of the Internet Is That?

pigrabbitbear writes "The recent web pornography ban in Egypt has raised questions about the evils of censorship (and porn) and the changing tide of popular attitude of Egyptians. It perhaps reflects the emerging influence of more conservative Muslim elements in government, a shift. Apparently the same ban was passed 3 years ago but was not enforced because their filtering system was not effective. But porn bans are nothing new. Other countries with strict censorship laws like China and Saudi Arabia have successfully implemented bans that restrict pornography along with anything else they deem inappropriate for public viewing. In 2010 the UK discussed a ban that would require users to specifically request access to pornographic material from their internet service providers. And porn-banning rhetoric has even stomped through the U.S. news media over the last few months, thanks to GOP also-ran Rick Santorum claiming President Obama is failing to enforce pornography laws. (There have also been some awesomely ridiculous pornography PSAs.)"

Incorrect citation on the summary

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to do with the Egypt ban but the summary states that Santorum has as a policy pledge to Ban pornography. The proper context is that he was the Santorum: "Believes that federal obscenity laws should be vigorously enforce" Refering of course to current laws already in the books. This is not a ban: http://www.snopes.com/politics/santorum/taliban.asp

Re:Incorrect citation on the summary

[DanTheStone]

According to your Snopes link he claims that hardcore pornography is obscenity and he will have obscenity laws used against it. That sounds like a ban to me.

Re:Governments do it wrong...

[explosivejared]

In places like Saudi Arabia, and increasingly in post-Arab Spring Egypt, power is legitimized through the approval of Islamist clerics. In most of the Gulf states, kings or emirs have the right to rule and don't constantly face "Islamic revolution" because of old agreements between the royal houses and the clerics. Your version of the dictator's calculus doesn't really work in states that blend in elements of theocracy.

Re:Disagree

[DoofusOfDeath]

I believe you missed my point. I was not arguing at all that porn should be outlawed.

I was arguing against an tacit attitude I was picking up from the post, which is that it's silly to avoid porn.

Re:Somewhere in Egypt

[inAbsurdum]

Actually, the Romans under Julius Caesar himself burned it first in 48 BC. Some accounts say accidentally. Next was Emperor Aurelian, who ordered the by then few remains of the original library burnt in around 272 AD. The coptic pope Theodosius outlawed paganism in 391 AD, which made people repeatedly burn "unwanted" literature for a few years. Finally, and this is disputed, Caliph Omar gave his general 'Amr ibn al-'As the order to destroy everything opposed to the Quran in 642 AD, which his army promptly and thoroughly supposedly did. By then, not much of the original collection was still there, as it was probably destroyed in the roman fires of 48 BC.

You might want to research a bit more

[Sycraft-fu]

In 48 BC the library was burned due to a war, the Siege of Alexandria. Later, when the Romans controlled Egypt, they destroyed the Serapeum for religious reasons (was a Christian Emperor). This was in 391 AD. The Muslims seized control of the library in 642 AD and again, brunination went on.

Ok so a few destruction periods, one by pagan Romans (and not for religious reasons, just as a part of a war), one by Christian Romans, and one by Muslims.

Fine but then we have, oh, 1370 years during which it could have been rebuilt. Even if you want to say nothing could have happened until after all the crusades, those ended about 1400 AD (the Alexandrian Crusade, which would be the most reliant here, was 1365 AD). So again a good 600+ years to rebuild.

Muslims cannot lay any of their anti-education stances on the feet of Christians. Dr. Tyson has an excellent talk on the topic, The God of the Gaps, which generally talks about religion and science, but one of the topics is the Muslim fall to theocracy, and the failure to ever recover from it.

It is not a case of "Oh the Christians burned a library, we can never be educated again."