Twitter confirmed Tuesday evening that its microblogging site has been shuttered by Egyptian authorities. This came hours after widespread reports that access had been cut off, as Egyptians took to the streets in what many hope and some fear would be a sequel to the revolution in Tunisia last week.
“We can confirm that Twitter was blocked in Egypt around 8 a.m. PT today. It is impacting both Twitter.com @applications,” the company tweeted from the handle @twitterglobalpr.
Also, reports confirm that Facebook was blocked earlier today in Egypt, a representative of Harvard University’s Herdict Web monitoring center said Wednesday.
“I have confirmed with users in Egypt that Facebook is blocked,” Jillian York, a project coordinator at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society that oversees the Herdict service, said in an email to Reuters.
Both social networking sites are alleged to have been integral in the Tunisian uprising earlier this month.