The Light Blue Screen of Censorship
Etisalat yesterday unblocked a bunch of big-name websites. Things like youtube, hi5, orkut, myspace, friendsreunited etc.
We are supposed to be grateful.
Although Etisalat has made no official comment on the unblocking as yet, there is speculation that it has something to do with the impending launch of rival telco du. And while some insiders are saying that du is unlikely to be 'better' than Etisalat, I'm inclined to wonder how they could actually be worse.
Plenty of sites are still blocked, however, and some are suffering from terminal tcp_errors - this is Etisalat's other kind of blocking strategy where you don't actually get to see the light blue screen of censorship...
you just get this...
Which makes you think that the site is not actually blocked, there's just some kind of technical problem that might go away if you come back later. Except it doesn't go away. This strategy is still applied to flickr.com and clickatell.com. Clickatell is interesting because it doesn't 'contravene the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the UAE', it's simply a competitor to Etisalat's overpriced SMS service.
We are supposed to be grateful.
Although Etisalat has made no official comment on the unblocking as yet, there is speculation that it has something to do with the impending launch of rival telco du. And while some insiders are saying that du is unlikely to be 'better' than Etisalat, I'm inclined to wonder how they could actually be worse.
Plenty of sites are still blocked, however, and some are suffering from terminal tcp_errors - this is Etisalat's other kind of blocking strategy where you don't actually get to see the light blue screen of censorship...
you just get this...
Which makes you think that the site is not actually blocked, there's just some kind of technical problem that might go away if you come back later. Except it doesn't go away. This strategy is still applied to flickr.com and clickatell.com. Clickatell is interesting because it doesn't 'contravene the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the UAE', it's simply a competitor to Etisalat's overpriced SMS service.
Labels: censorship, Etisalat
posted by Keef at
12:00 pm
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