October 21st, 2010 by Evan

Al Jazeera reports that Egyptian authorities shut down 12 more private television channels on Tuesday for allegedly violating the terms of their broadcast licenses.  Egyptian Information Minister Annas el-Fiqi  said that the move by NileSat, Egypt’s main satellite operator, was a “corrective measure” necessary to protect viewers. Meanwhile on Egypt’s most popular talk show, Masr ElNaharda, commentators with close ties to the government suggested banning or passing laws to regulate Facebook. At The Guardian’s Comment is Free Osama Diab writes, “The suggestion of a ban on Facebook shows that the regime is worried of any medium that shows real trends and statistics in Egypt that they have no control over. It’s also because the regime is definitely losing the Facebook numbers game; it’s hard to imagine that Mokhtar [a commentator on Masr ElNaharda] would have still suggested control over the social network if it was President Hosni Mubarak who got a quarter of a million fans on his page rather than ElBaradei.”

Posted in Egypt, Elections, Journalism, Middle Eastern Media, Technology |