What Role Have Multinationals Played in Egypt's Communication Shutdown? | Business Ethics - 0 views
business-ethics.com/...%80%99s-communication-shutdown
arab egypt movements mubarak social telecom vodafone mncs multinational corporations
shared by Arabica Robusta on 03 Feb 11
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it's hard to tell how widespread and successful the crackdown has been. There was at least one report of BlackBerry users finding a way around the blocks. One Internet service provider reportedly held out for days before shutting down by Monday. And while cell service had supposedly resumed after the weekend, CNN reports the government has shut it again temporarily.
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It's also unclear whether the Egyptian government had a legal basis for its actions, as Vodafone claimed. But Wong said that if even if there were some law that allowed the crackdown, it would run counter to international human-rights principles. "There are a set of human-rights norms around when governments can restrict free flow of information," she said. "I would say this is pretty close to a violation."
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Did they have any choice? "We don't know," said Cynthia Wong, of the Center for Democracy and Technology. "Certainly it shows how much leverage governments have over mobile phone companies in particular."
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Perhaps because it is talking about a Western ally, this article is quite mealy mouthed. "We don't know" if Vodafone Egypt was telling the truth when they said they were legally obligated. "It's hard to tell" how widespread the crackdown was. However, the article does make clear that no other dictatorship (including Iran or China) has shut down the Internet so completely. This demonstrates that MNC-led governments can be the most dictatorial in the world (outside, perhaps, Burma or North Korea).