Several Salafi and liberal MPs have finally agreed on something: blocking pornographic sites. If the parliament ratifies their request, it will set a precedent for Internet censorship in Egypt.

Cairo – It comes as no surprise that an Egyptian Salafi MP’s asked for a briefing on how to block pornographic websites on the Internet.

The MP, Younis Makhioun, represents the Salafi al-Nour Party, which won over one-quarter of the parliament’s seats.

What is surprising, however, is that liberal MP, Amr Hamzawy, expressed his support for blocking such sites a few weeks ago in an interview on a Salafi TV channel.

He justified his stance by saying that European parliaments too have engaged in a similar debate.

Egyptian courts had issued a ruling three years ago that obliges the government to block these sites.

But the communication ministry did not adhere to it, claiming that a total block is technically very difficult, costly, and useless.

Thus, the government asked families to monitor their children as an alternative.

In fact, one of the few virtues of the ousted regime was that it did not try to censor the Internet. On very rare occasions did Egyptians come across a blocked website.

It is no secret that such open access itself played a major role in toppling former President Hosni Mubarak.

Today, with the rise of Islamist groups, limiting freedom on the Internet is being widely promoted using religious and ethical slogans, such as: “Together to protect children from pornography.”

While in Europe it refers to the prevention of child pornography being circulated and sexual abuse, the same slogan is being used to grant governments authority to control virtual material.

Since they did not need it before, Egyptians are not very familiar with the use of proxies, a software tool that allows the circumvention of government blocks.

Some had tried using them for a short period of time when the state shut down all communication in the first days of the revolution.

The resort to proxies will certainly become widely used if the government begins to restrict access to certain sites.

The authorities can place restrictions on sites using two methods. The first is by blocking the IP (digital address) of the targeted site.

The efficiency of this method is limited particularly in the case of pornographic sites, because site administrators can resort to changing their IP address continuously in order to bypass firewalls and anti-virus programs.

The second method by which to restrict Internet access is by using filters. It is based on encrypting particular words, such as “sex,” in order to ban websites that use them.

This method is commonly used in China to block political websites. It is described as “banning too little too much,” meaning that it will not succeed in blocking all pornography sites. At the same time, such filters will block medical, scientific, and literary sites that naturally use such key words.

The Egyptian government has yet to respond to the Salafi MP’s requests, but it is required to respond sooner or later.

The problem seems to lie in the lack of counter arguments that do not fall into the trap of religious discourse. Such arguments might try to determine what is pornographic without taking into account society’s priorities, namely, tackling the issue of poverty before censoring content on the Internet.

In fact, any argument that does not defend freedom of information in principle and oppose government intervention in the Internet, regardless of its type, will be destined to be a contradiction. It might also appear as a reaction or at best would postpone a pending confrontation over the issue of freedom of speech and the Internet.

First of all lol at al-Akhbar crying over this. WE GIVE THEM FREEDOM AND THEY BAN PORN!!! MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD!! But, anyways, what are your opinions on this? I'm all for banning porn but as the article touched on there doesn't seem to be an efficient way to do it. Do y'all think that a porn ban is fascism or feminism?

EmanuelaOrlandi posted:
Word. I haven't really read about that too much but is it mostly directed towards women who look 'western' or whatever or is it spread evenly around? I would imagine it's part of an Aisha-Whore type dichotomy but that could be my Western viewpoint talking..

khamsek would probably answer this best but from what I understand no, even women in niqab get harassed. harassment is about power, not lust

ilmdge posted:
http://lucypaw.tumblr.com/post/17411801036/yeah-im-not-letting-privilege-denying-derailing

hahaha that andy warhol quote is so perfect

discipline posted:
egypt is one of the few countries I would prefer not to travel to unescorted because harassment is so intense. something crazy like 90% of women are groped on the street. I blame a lot of stuff on porn but it's clear by what words they use to harass where they get them from

why do all these weirdos keep calling me sasha?

discipline posted:
egypt is one of the few countries I would prefer not to travel to unescorted because harassment is so intense. something crazy like 90% of women are groped on the street. I blame a lot of stuff on porn but it's clear by what words they use to harass where they get them from

But presumably porn is consumed a lot more in western countries where street harassment is less endemic?