StumbleUpon blocked by Etisalat

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StumbleUpon joins other social networking services which are banned by Etisalat, including Twitter, Orkut and Flickr

Social content sharing service StumbleUpon has been blocked by UAE telecom provider Etisalat.

The site, which allows users, to rate web pages and share them with friends and users with similar interests, was reported blocked on a posting to the UAE community blog.

While the site is blocked to Etisalat customers, those connecting through rival operator du are still able to access the site

StumbleUpon, which is owned by eBay, serves up content to the users who click on a ‘Stumble!' button on their browser toolbar, with pages selected for display based on user's ratings of previous pages, ratings by his or her friends and by the ratings of users with similar interests.

The site joins other social networking services which are banned by Etisalat, including micro-blogging service Twitter, social networking site Orkut, and photo sharing site Flickr.

Sites can be blocked in the UAE for 'inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates', according to Telecom Regulation Authority rules.

For more on web blocking in the UAE see the itp.net blog.

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READERS' COMMENTS

Stupidity
Posted by Muhammad on Wednesday 9 July 2008 at 15:11 UAE time


Why don't they just block the whole internet? How stupid!

Other social networking sites also blocked
Posted by Farheen Ahmed on Monday 7 July 2008 at 20:00 UAE time


They have also blocked religous community sites like Muslimica.com just because it is social networking. I think Etislalat doeds not like certain words that cause it to block sites and its time they change that.

spare the rod and spoil the kid
Posted by MOHAMMED KALEEMULLAH, DUBAI, U.A.E. on Monday 7 July 2008 at 19:54 UAE time

I think TRA basically believes in 'if you spare the rod you spoil the child'. But ironically what you are unable to find on your PC you will find easily out on the roads, airport, malls etc.

Taking a hammer to a sewing needle policy of Etisalat
Posted by luke on Monday 7 July 2008 at 19:05 UAE time

I have to backup what Asmaa states around the damage that TRA cause to technical innovation in the UAE. Their block out policy is strangling the vibrant web 2.0 / social network community in the UAE who use these sites for professional purposes. StumbleUpon links people with common interests and naturally promotes collaboration and builds communities (esp technical), this then leads to new innovation.

One of the reasons I left the UAE was that the technical infrastructure was proving too weary and cumbersome for my work. Having everything route through the filtering proxy made life as a web site administrator near on impossible.

The UAE had the potential to become a technical hub - but with the TRA holding firm to their current position on censorship that won't be happening anyday soon.

Blocking out entire sites based on a minority of people seeking out some adult encounters is just a joke.

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