Egypt Blocked Facebook Free Basics For Not Letting It Spy On Users

Yasmeen Abutaleb and Joseph Menn, reporting for Reuters: Facebook wouldn't let the government circumvent the service's security to conduct surveillance. Egypt blocked Facebook's Free Basics Internet service at the end of last year after the U.S. company refused to give the Egyptian government the ability to spy on users, two people familiar with the matter said. Two sources with direct knowledge of discussions between Facebook and the Egyptian government said Free Basics was blocked because the company would not allow the government to circumvent the service's security to conduct surveillance.

Will they block apple for not giveing the backdoor

[Joe_Dragon]

Will they block apple for not giving the backdoor to the IOS lock screen?

Re:

[Z00L00K]

In Egypt - well, considering the amount of extremists there it's not surprising.

Unfortunately there are also a lot of other people that just have a different opinion also stuck in the surveillance and some of them suffers by the actions of the authorities.

Sorry Alanis Morissette, but this is truly...

[RJFerret]

Ironic.

Re:

[The-Ixian]

It's like rain on your wedding day

One Two Three

[Frosty Piss]

Facebook wouldn't let the government circumvent the service's security to conduct surveillance.

The summary consists of three sentences that say this same thing three slightly different ways.

Re:

[The-Ixian]

Darn, and you only used the word "three" to only describe their sentences twice.

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[RavenLrD20k]

Count the subject line for the third time

Of course

[Shadow IT Ninja]

Facebook is an ideal tool for a repressive regime. You crack down on dissidents through their friends and family. Iran is especially famous for this. Back in 1979, my family hosted an Iranian college student who suddenly became a refugee because her uncle was opposed to Ayatollah Khomeini . Had she returned to Iran, they probably would have taken her hostage in order to get at her uncle. Facebook is perfect for identifying and tracking such targets.

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[DocHoncho]

Yeah, that's why FaceBook is working with the US security apparatus to push this shit in all these countries. It will give them prime and easy access to all that juicy foreign data. Obviously they wouldn't want the local governments to get at the data, it's not for them, it's for the US espionage industrial complex.

Yeah

[Ryanrule]

Fuck you guys. Remove the trump ad.

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[Ryanrule]

You couldnt afford it. You are a trump supporter.

Farcebook Doesn't Like Competition

[zenlessyank]

Also, 2-faced fucks rule the world. If you aren't 2-faced then you won't make it here on this satanic rock.

..but for the US government

[SumDog]

So, they'll refuse to let Egypt spy on their users, but they have no problem what so ever with allowing the US government full access to search everything? (Or did everyone suddenly forget about PRISM?)

Re:

[DocHoncho]

Why do you think they're pushing it? You think FaceBook gives a shit about government surveillance? They're one of the biggest parts of the espionage industrial complex, after Google of course. This FaceBook basic shit is all about outsourcing foreign data collection to the individuals so the US spy industry doesn't have to work as hard.

I don't blame them

[phantomfive]

The users were probably using it for April fools jokes. The punishment could not be harsh enough.

Targeted advertising

[guises]

This is an advertisement for Egypt, right? I've never seen one quite like this before, but I'm sold.

SLASHVERTISEMENT

[billybob2001]

This story is a blatant Slashvertisement!

I remember when it was all much less blatant :-)

(18-digit UID, today)

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[whipslash]

hehehehehe

Re:

[billybob2001]

This is a much more cerebral fooling than some years.

I'm enjoying it (just as much as other recent changes).

Now can you hack in some code to make :like: display as a thumbs-up image, just for today? :-)

Re:

[danbert8]

I was wondering when we'd have the obligatory UID fight where it would end in gasps when someone reveals a sub 10 digit...

Re:

[zenlessyank]

Now I can't tell if I like you or not. Binary gives me a fingerache with the calcalater.

Right

[I4ko]

So you are saying Egypt blocked Facebook to stop Facebook spying on users. I wish my government was so forward looking and insightful. The misery spreading douche bag dominated site needs to die.

Re:

[DocHoncho]

If they did it's because they know the US is the one doing the spying. Nothing short of the complete dissolution of the entire US government will stop the Espionage Industrial Complex now, they've got their hooks in deep and with the Big Data fetish in Sillicon Valley there's no shortage of new opportunities to gather more and more data.