Egyptian court refuses to block Facebook

An Egyptian court on Tuesday turned down a lawsuit calling for blocking Facebook in the Arab country, a judicial source said.

The lawsuit was filed by an Egyptian lawyer to demand that Facebook be blocked on ground that it “spoils manners” and “incites prostitution”. The lawyer also argued that the website allows “rumour mongers” to launch pages to “speak in the name of the state”.

The court ruled that blocking the website would “infringe the constitutional rights” of millions of Egyptians, according to the judicial source.

With 12 million users, Egypt has the largest number of Facebook users in the Middle East.

In 2011, Egyptian authorities temporarily blocked access to social media websites in an attempt to calm down anti-regime protests, which eventually led to the ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.