Vodafone Egypt’sFacebook pagewas hacked earlier this evening, then briefly restored, after which the page disappeared entirely off of the social network.
The image placed as Vodafone Egypt’s profile picture read, in Arabic,”Destructive hurricane is behind the hacking.”
A message left by the hackers on the page received 458 comments and 467 likes before the page disappeared.
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The hack is most probably a move by Egypt’s hackers, in retaliation for Vodafone pulling the plug on cell phone service in the country at the height of the uprising.
The telecom company has consistently come under fire since then, particularly in the post-revolutionary period, accused of attempting to take credit for the uprising in one of their advertising campaigns.
More recently, their Ramadan campaign in which they encouraged their customers to tweet ‘Thank yous’ to their friends and family, using a Vodafone-specific hashtag, was flooded with tweets criticizing them for what many see as a complicit role in the deaths of Egyptians during the uprising.
Screenshot courtesy ofMona Abdel Aziz
Update:A new page has turned up onFacebook, claiming to be Vodafone Egypt’s new official fan page. The first entry on the wall reads, in Arabic, that the international corporation has made the decision to take over the management of the fan page.
That said, the very first post in English has a grammatical error in it. It reads:
Vodafone UK is pleasured to welcome all Egyptians in their new Vodafone Egypt Official Page on Facebook
Update:The new page has since disappeared from Facebook as well.
Update:Vodafone Egypt’sTwitter accounthas released the followingstatementabout the hack:
Story byNancy Messieh
Lesotho-born and raised, Nancy Messieh, The Next Web’s Middle East Editor, is an Egyptian writer and photographer based in Cairo, Egypt. Fol(show all)Lesotho-born and raised, Nancy Messieh, The Next Web’s Middle East Editor, is an Egyptian writer and photographer based in Cairo, Egypt. Follow her onTwitter,her siteorGoogle+or get in touch at nancy@thenextweb.com
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