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Egypt Blocked Facebook Free Basics For Not Letting It Spy On Users (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the affinity-for-snooping dept.

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.

4 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. Will they block apple for not giveing the backdoor by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  2. SLASHVERTISEMENT by billybob2001 · · Score: 2

    This story is a blatant Slashvertisement!

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

    (18-digit UID, today)

    1. Re:SLASHVERTISEMENT by billybob2001 · · Score: 3

      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? :-)

    2. Re:SLASHVERTISEMENT by zenlessyank · · Score: 2

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