According to cnn Egypt has begun to shutdown access to communication sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Some are reporting that entire areas are without access to the internet completely. It is believed that Egypt's government is coordinating the shutdowns in retaliation to the recent riots occurring from the people wanting to remove their dictator, Hosni Mubarak.
This is not only hurting the local economy of Egypt, but it is hurting our economy as well. The Egyptian economy will take a hit from this because companies lose ad space and will start to lose business therefore less money will be spent locally. Our economy will be hurt because internet providers and social websites that use ads to make a profit will no longer have access to the people therefore they won't make any money and so they will have less to spend in our country. Cell phone providers have also been told to halt there services, until further notice by authorities, which means that they will be taking a hit economically for the same reasons as the internet providers. A bunch of the landlines have stopped working as well which makes for a major inconvenience for everyone since phones have become all but necessary in modern day. With all of these forms of media and social interaction not functioning the riots should come to an end quite soon, since most of the planning and preparation has been done using the internet. Hopefully these riots can be quelled quickly enough so as to prevent an economic backlash in both Egypt and the US.
7 comments:
Does the type of economy that exists in Egypt lead to the ability of this to happen? Could something like this happen in the US?
I dont believe this could happen in the US. Because the US doesn't have a dictator. The ability for the Gov. of the US to do it is there, but because we as a nation are so dependent on the technology, people who hack computers and web designers would be able to save parts of the internet.
Why do you think the riots will come to an end soon? There must be plenty of people in Egypt who don't have a social networking account and others who know how to bypass the restrictions of the Egyptian government. If the people of Egypt are going to riot I don't think restricting there access to Facebook is going to stop them.
I agree with Easton, just like if your parents took your phone or computer away for punishment. You wouldn't stop asking them for it back or stop trying to find a way to get it back. The Egyptians won't back down, maybe that is their only way to connect with their family. Or it's their only means of making a living or getting an education. They won't just sit back and let the government keep stripping them of their freedom.
To Kern: I don't believe that this situation is likely to happen in the US because we are democratic. The reason the riots are happening is because the people don't like their dictator government. Without motives like this there wouldn't be any riots and the government wouldn't need to shut down communication via internet to prevent the forming of riots.
As much as I sympathize with the Egyptians, they shouldn't have voted for the guy to become president. He's now acting like a dictator. Sarah you completely misunderstood the point of the riots. They riot because they want him to step down as President not because they can't use the internet. They were broadcasting, communicating riots, and planning over the internet hence the reason why they cut them off. The President is trying to use it as crowd control.
To Easton: I don't believe that the riots will stop just because of the lack of internet access I also think they will come to an end because of the lack of telecommunication. Think about it, without the internet and phones people won't be able to organize large protest because the word won't reach enough people. Also the lack of internet and phones will cause a lot of unnecessary stress on people's everyday life. I say this because many people's jobs require phones or access to the internet, also it makes it hard on a social basis because no one can call friends or family to organize meetings etc. I think this will make the riots stop because people will want the ease of telecommunication and the internet back.
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