How Users in Egypt Are Bypassing Twitter & Facebook Blocks

January 27, 2011 by Vadim Lavrusik199

Update: Egypt’s Internet is suffering major outages, the Associated Press is reporting. A major Internet provider in the country is saying no Internet traffic is going in or out of the country.

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Protests in Egypt are expected to intensify with opposition leaderMohamed ElBaradei’s return to Cairo, and reports of Twitter and Facebook being blocked inside the country by Egyptian authorities continue to surface through the social networks themselves, and according to HerdictWeb. Users are also reporting that SMS – short message service – is being blocked as well.

Though it does appear that both Twitter and Facebook are still being blocked, many users are bypassing the blocks through proxy servers and third-party apps. Here is how they’re doing it.

Mobile & Third-Party Apps

Social mobile applications like Blackberry for Twitter or UberTwitter are still working for users in the country. Also, users are employing third-party apps like TweetDeck and HootSuite to update their Twitter and Facebook accounts.

HootSuite Chief Technology Officer Simon Stanlake said that though prior users are able to access Twitter and Facebook from their site, new users wouldn’t be able to authenticate new accounts because it requires hitting Twitter.com. He said their iPhone application doesn’t require a web authentication, so new HootSuite users are accessing the site through their mobile app.

Proxy Sites

Accessing blocked sites through proxy servers seems to be the most common way that users are bypassing the blocks. Twitter PR acknowledged that though their traffic has diminished from Egypt, users were tapping into proxies and apps to tweet. Facebook users in Egypt were sharing different proxy sites that users can access, such as Proxy-Service.de, which enables access to blocked sites. The only disadvantage is that you have to put up with a bar at the top with display ads, which is how they make money to support the service.

Software

Many are also using free proxy software like Hotspot Shield or Tor. Each requires downloading software to your computer and then clicking “connect” before getting started, but is enabling users to browse the web anonymously. The video above about how to install Tor has been making its way around the blogosphere.