Facebook blocked by ISPs in Mauritius
Or, the Great Firewall of Mauritius in the making…
Make sure you read tonight’s issue of Le Mauricien. There will be an article about Facebook that will be quite interesting for Mauritian Facebookers.
Arrived in the office with this IM from a friend:
“Extrait d’un texte Ă paraitre cet aprem…”
“Le gouvernement, Ă travers l’Information and Communication Technology Authority (ICTA), a demandĂ© hier aux fournisseurs d’accès Internet de bloquer l’accès au public Ă ce site prisĂ© par beaucoup d’internautes mauriciens, le jugeant rempli de propos diffamatoires. Dans le communiquĂ©, on peut lire que le site « is currently hosting contents of defamatory nature », d’oĂą la dĂ©cision de faire bloquer l’accès Ă ce site […]”
Next, in my mailbox:
Hi eddy,
Can u by any chance access facebook?
Clive.
Well, Clive, I’m sorry to inform you that Facebook has been banned by ISPs in Mauritius at our government’s request. Apparently, our great leader feels insecure after becoming aware of a fake profile of him on the site, and his first reaction is to inflict a punishment on the whole country without regard to the impact on progress and how Mauritius is viewed.
So, who’s up for a Google bomb on “Navin Ramgoolam”? Would that result in the ban of Google and the whole Internet?
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OMG!
We are living in a communist country!
I’m up for it!
Comment by Fad — November 8, 2007 #
You can start by suggesting a better translation for “navin ramgoolam”.
E.
Comment by Eddy — November 8, 2007 #
Maru sa!! There was an article abt google in competition with facebook. But i never thought navin’s ego would go that far!!! Is he allowed to do that???
Comment by clive — November 8, 2007 #
Ok, conge p vini. Va pense met ene ti kitsoz lor nous cher PM lor Wiki. :P
Google bomb … don’t know how to put something up about him there. Explain and it might happen ;) Oh no … I use gmail. I’d better not otherwise I won’t be able to communicate.
Et dire ki mo ti penser the Great Firewall of China ti dur a accepter.
Facebook details from a friend overseas:
Name: Navin Ramgoolam
Networks: None
Matches: Name
Group: I am sick of the Right Honorable Dr Navin Chandra
Network: Global
Size: 25 members
Type: Just for Fun - Inside Jokes
Matches: Description
Comment by tilai — November 8, 2007 #
Can access Facebook again from Mauritius. Navin’s profile is empty and with no confirmed friends. Was it empty? Was it deleted? Who knows?
Comment by tilai — November 8, 2007 #
So if ever there is a fake article on him like on all sites of the world would he be banning mauritius of the internet??? thats not our fault whats happening to him so he should just know some sense in his head and stop acting like a child and be so SELFISH!! People are really stupid in this country! i hate it and if i could i would leave it now and never come back!! I wish this guy was never our leader coz he seriously sucks!! and hes such a selfish person!!! ppff get lost
Comment by Gutoya — November 8, 2007 #
Oh, now I know why I had problems accessing facebook for the past two days! Oh God, that’s such a lame policy!!!
Is it by any chance linked to some cheeky monkey creating the profile of Navin Ramgoolam on Facebook?
Comment by Pascal — November 8, 2007 #
[…] Eddy has just told me of an article to appear in Today’s edition of Le Mauricien on the Mauritian’s Governement wish to block Facebook (i.e. censoring the social networking website). […]
Pingback by Avinash Meetoo: Blog » Blog Archive » Facebook: A Mauritian tragedy? — November 8, 2007 #
Le Mauricien has now been updated online. Here is the article about the ban of Facebook.
Comment by Eddy — November 8, 2007 #
I had no problems accessing facebook and it’s still ok…everything seems fine on my side. Using myT.
If ever they stop us from accessing this site, then u can bet, they will be banning many other sites as well…and you may soon here, as u said “the great firewall of mauritius”…and this moment, maybe the mauritian government is asking for assistance from the chinese to implement this. What a cyber island….wonderful!
Comment by Roushdat — November 8, 2007 #
I can’t help thinking that Navin Ramgoolam is like George W. Bush: very good at making wrong decisions.
Comment by Patrick Ng — November 8, 2007 #
Well, there’s not only Ramgoolam there, the president, among others, is also a victim. So we can expect more outage I guess.
Comment by Pascal — November 8, 2007 #
Pfff, nirporte kwa ces Mauritien.. Just research for the IP of that F….. who created that piece of s… everything will go fine! WHY penalising all Mauitians?… Pff, another gud excuse and misuse of authority. . . Pathetic. . . Cheer up ppl who voted!!! WeEeEeEehhh! Nice work…
Comment by Cedric — November 8, 2007 #
sa pays la p vinn 1 dictature zour en zour!
Comment by selven — November 8, 2007 #
I don’t believe that the PM asked the ICTA to do that. I guess some people there, wanting to please the PM, did this idiocy.
It’s pathetic that ISPs did what the ICTA told them though. It shows that they too are just yes-men.
Personally, I wonder if the ICTA has the legal rights to block a website. If yes, then the law really needs to be amended because in the future everything will be in the form of a website…
Just my 2 cts.
Comment by Avinash Meetoo — November 8, 2007 #
btw, what happens if ever someone had made a really important business contact on facebook some days ago, and he just lost a $23bn contract coz he was unable to reach the contact back in the proper delay..just coz facebook is not accessible.. does the country pays back the money?
Comment by selven — November 8, 2007 #
Ask ICTA :-)
Actually, this is extremely serious. Blocking access to information can be disastrous business-wise.
Comment by Avinash Meetoo — November 8, 2007 #
I once thought that ICTA was hors-circuit…They could not approved the new price of Internet access I think…And just for the Prime Minister they just began to work again…
Good question Selven: Now for people trying to be in the onli8ne business beware of the Great Firewall of Mauritius…I thought that it was only in China but…
Comment by Josh — November 11, 2007 #
Ha! I just found this!
There are a couple of workarounds for this - when Facebook went offline, I just used my US proxy server and VOILA! - Facebook was back.
I’m seeing a potential business model in proxy servers if this childish behaviour continues.
Comment by Steven — November 12, 2007 #
Reminds me of China… its a sad sad day for our democracy… bizin sanz sanzma li dire…
Comment by h2o — November 12, 2007 #
MAN MAURITIUS IS BECOMING A HELL! SAMEM KI APEL DEMOCRACY?????? TO BLOCK EN SITE POU EN SIMPLE TI PROB, COT TI CPV SIMPLEMENT REPORT PROFILE LA
Comment by DJASH — November 12, 2007 #
Why those who decided to ask ISP’s in Mauritius to temporarily block access to Facebook got it all wrong:
They wanted to prevent Mauritians living in Mauritius to see the fake Navin Ramgoolam’s profile on Facebook. Well, Mauritians living in Mauritius are the most likely to know that it was fake profile. On the other hand, people outside Mauritius are the ones they should have been more concerned about. Most people in USA and Canada, for example, don’t know Mauritius well enough or not at all to know if the profile was fake or not.
Comment by Patrick Ng — November 13, 2007 #
[…] If there’s one thing that the Facebook mini-controversy achieved, that is letting people know that there is an ongoing revolution against Navin Ramgoolam’s government on the Internet. […]
Pingback by Eddy Young » More Navin Ramgoolam on the web — November 13, 2007 #
[…] Eddy has just told me of an article to appear in Today’s edition of Le Mauricien on the Mauritian’s Governement wish to block Facebook (i.e. censoring the social networking website). […]
Pingback by Facebook: A Mauritian tragedy? | RelatedSeek.com — December 9, 2007 #
Navin, ce mec c’est en trou F. C n kk L . Rod mot dans dictionnaire pou decrire li pa gagner sa.
So program al dans triolet riv du rempart pou guet ti planteurs. Parski sa mem li koner li. Kot li kone internet sa baya la? li pa conne limportance internet. Mauritius ISP, ayo sa pa kozer. Mo encor p prier bondier kan pou gagne n nouvo ISP a maurice. Mo message a Navin - Al boir dilait do beta. Grandi un pe. Ki to ti man g dans tipti pou ki to pna lesprit coumsa? Kan to mandat fini lerla mo guet toi couma to fer met firewall.
Comment by XHTML — February 20, 2008 #
Does anyone know the meaning of NBC?
Navin Broadcasting Corporation
Comment by Robin — April 12, 2008 #