Tech experts brush off YouTube ban

Information technology experts dismissed a court order issued Saturday banning YouTube in Egypt for a month for hosting the highly controversial film “The Innocence of Muslims,” widely deemed anti-Islamic.

The Cairo Administrative Court ordered the prime minister, the communications minister and the National Telecom Regulatory Authority to enforce the verdict immediately. The government, however, can appeal the verdict.

In an official statement sent to Egypt Independent, Google said the company had “received nothing from the judge or government related to this matter.” Nonetheless, experts say the ban is not feasible.

The ruling came after lawyer Mohamed Hamid Salem filed a lawsuit last month, alleging that the amateur film produced in the US that mocks Prophet Mohamed was a “Zionist plot” and a “dirty war against Muslims and Islam.”

The Cairo court has also ordered the government to ban all other websites that showed the “The Innocence of Muslims.”

The Communications Ministry is yet to issue a statement on the matter.

Ramy Raoof, a human rights activist who specializes in information and communication technology, said the impracticality of imposing the ban is twofold. On one hand, a decision to ban any website is costly, he said, and on the other, the Communications Ministry is reluctant to support centralized censorship.

“The Communications Ministry doesn’t approve of censorship, it rather endorses decentralized censorship, which allows each individual user to block the website of their choice,” he said.