An Egyptian court has ruled in favour of banning porn in the country, after an initial call for the move came from one member of parliament, followed by confirmation from the Ministry of Telecommunications that it had begun to explore options on how to implement the ban.
The ruling was confirmed today by local publication, Egypt Today, via Twitter.
The news has been met with concern over where Egyptian authorities will draw the line on what is acceptable and what is not.
@gr33ndata @Kemety Did the court in all its infinite wisdom define precisely what is considered porn and what is not?
— Amr Hassan (@superamr) March 28, 2012
Others have reacted to the news with a fair share of sarcasm:
Well. We have found the reason to poverty, pollution, ignorance and illiteracy. Porn sites ban is the secret ingredient.
— Jean-Pierre Avakian (@jpa) March 28, 2012
The news has seen the revival of the hashtag, #EgyptPornBan on Twitter, and one tweet highlights the very problem with the proposed ban:
I remember during my stay in Muscat , the journal of periodontology was banned as a porn site due to its papers on STDs#Fail #EgyPornBan
— Zeyad Salem ☭ (@Zeyadsalem) March 28, 2012
There are many unanswered questions that accompany the news of the ruling. How will the government define what is deemed offensive and what is deemed acceptable? Will a filtering system be put in use, and will perfectly innocent content get caught in the net? Will suggestive videos on YouTube or images on Tumblr be next?
A similar ruling was made in 2009, but the court’s decision was never enforced. This time around, with a conservative parliament backing the ruling, however, it is highly likely that a system will be put in place, with some speculation surfacing as to whether the ruling is simply an excuse to clamp down on Internet freedom in the country in general.
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