Yahoo’s Flickr Blocked by United Arab Emirates / Dubai
Duncan at the Blog Herald is reporitng that Yahoo’s Flickr has been blocked in the country of Dubai. Apparently government censors in the Mid Eastern country have issued the Flickr block. Duncan believes that the block is due to the amount of sex oriented photos hosted by Flickr, and points that “interesting that people knock Google Base for hosting porn and yet no one ever seems to mention Yahoo!”
From what I can find out, this block by Dubai/UAE was first reported in English by Metroblogging Dubai : “International visitors may wonder why the Dubai metroblog doesn’t have Flickr.com photos like the other cities.
Well, that’s because Flickr has been blocked by the UAE government censors for the second time. Blame it on Etisalat (state monopoly teloc), blame it on the TRA (UAE Telecoms Regulatory Authority) the result is the same: no more Flickr for Dubaians.”
Here is a link to Flickr served via a Dubai / UAE proxy with the message “We apologize the site you are attempting to visit has been blocked due to its content being inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political and moral values of the United Arab Emirates. “
Comments
6 responses so far ↓
Reem Al Fahim on Jan 5, 2006 at 4:49 pm
1.” Yahoo’s Flickr has been blocked in the country of Dubai” Dubai is not a country it is a city in the United Arab Emirates
Loren Baker, “Editor ” get your facts staight before publishing an article.
BÃró Zoltán on Jan 7, 2006 at 8:29 am
Dear Readers,
Do you want that Palestine will be free?
If your answer is yes, I recommend you the following home page:
http://www.alah.hu
“This image shows the future. A minaret-form skyscraper rises from the mass of the buildings in New York, the most densely populated city of the United States. The building is the “Tower of American-Islamic Friendship”. It symbolizes two things: on one hand there are a growing number of Moslem people in the U.S.; and on the other hand it shows that the U.S. is in alliance with the Islamic countries. Due to the new friendship America does not provide any more financial or military aid to Israel, which leads to the weakening of Israel and consequently, the freedom of Palestine.”
Sincerely,
Zoltan Biro
khawla on Jan 31, 2006 at 12:35 am
Doğan Çetiner on Feb 14, 2006 at 6:28 pm
Electrostaic powder and wet coatings.
Martin on May 15, 2006 at 7:13 am
The internet is only censored for ‘poor people access’ as most others that have enough budget tend to stay away from Etisalat as far as possible… (Try Tecom, it allows Flick’r through.)
Interesting sidenote: Did you know that Flickr means ‘gay’ in the dutch language? Maybe thats the reason Flickr is not popular at all in The Netherlands and would be another reason for the monopolist censors to decide to block access…..
It is for no reason that most sites from the UAE look like they are made by a 12 year old… Because all is blocked it is impossible to even learn about the internet! I experienced Microsoft windowsupdate was even blocked at times and is the reason (other than purely commercial) to block VOIP telephony like Skype??!?
The UAE can never become an internet powerhouse if they keep censoring the internet like this…
OK. My two cents…
Telephony Free Voip on Mar 8, 2008 at 1:35 pm
Does free VoIP really exist?…
VoIP is a kind of phone service over high-speed Internet connection. One can have access to this technology through two services, one is phone based and another is computer based….
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