Egypt: Vodafone and France Télécom say Egyptian gov forced them to send pro-Mubarak mass texts

"Vodafone Group PLC and France Télécom SA, facing heat for complying with the Egyptian government's order to pull the plug on their networks last week, said Thursday that Egypt's government forced its way onto their mobile networks to send text messages directly to the country's people." (WSJ)

• [Anonymous]

  The wording on this article is troublesome.

  Did Egypt force Vodafone to send messages for them? Or did they force their way onto the networks?

  There is a distinction between these two things.

  It appears from the article that the latter is the case:

  “U.K.-based Vodafone said the government invoked emergency powers under Egypt’s Telecom Act to send the text messages against the company’s will.”

  Therefore the title of this article should be changed as it makes Vodafone and France Telecom complicit with the government actions, not the victims of said actions.

• [MrJM]

  AT&T announces plan to preemptively issue pro-Mubarak texts.

• [Anonymous]

  Well the government forced all telecommunication companies in Egypt to STOP all calls/txts/data for the past week. Everything is back on now.

• [Anonymous]

  “Forced” I do not think it means what you think it means.