Egypt Internet Censorship Goes Beyond Social – 8% Drop in Egyptian Traffic

Egypt, embroiled in bitter anti-government protests, is a techie conversation hotbed at the moment.  The government has blocked Twitter and, apparently, Facebook and some Google services.  Anonymous has declared war on the censorship.  Facebook protest pages are raging with activity.

Well, a little bit of poking around has revealed a (somewhat fuzzy) picture of the scope of what the Egyptian government has done – throughout our network traffic from Egypt has dropped by about 8%.  The implication is that the Egyptian government’s censorship is reaching beyond social networks and into foreign websites as well.

8% doesn’t seem like a lot, but that’s one in twelve attempts to find and access (mostly) western-based websites being denied.  See the Guardian for a timeline of events.

For any publishers out there, check your analytics – if you’ve noticed a drop in traffic from Egypt over the past few days, put it in the comments below.