I believe WhatsApp encryption is not enabled in Egypt.

WhatsApp Encryption is enabled in Egypt - source: I live in Cairo.

It should be enabled for everybody regardless of country.

Whatsapp belongs to Facebook now, and Facebook is happily making tool for China to censorship. It's not out of reach to think that governments might negotiate Whatsapp too for some "tools".

0. http://www.forbes.com/sites/xiangwang/2016/11/24/doing-busin...

I wouldn't read that much into it; WhatsApp is simply more popular so they would face too much of a backlash. That would be my guess.

Keep in mind that Egypt is practically under a dictatorship. It is not like their gov really cares if their people gets pissed off... Their government is far from carrying about peoples liberties[1].

So, for me the question remains: If what the Egyptian government wants is to apply their surveillance policies and Signal is banned because it is preventing them, doesn't the continuation of operation of other "private and encrypted" messangers say something? Especially of Whatsapp that claims that it implements the same security and privacy oriented architecture as Signal does?

[1] https://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2013/egypt

> It is not like their gov really cares if their people gets pissed of

No man rules alone. Even in a dictatorship, pissed off peasants mean an army that has to do horrible things to keep them in line. That costs a dictator money.

Never said a man rules alone. Any dictatorship only takes a critical mass of powerful enough people to establish itself. This doesn't necessarily mean the people of a country as a whole, or the majority of the people, or even some times a significant and/or representative amount of the people.

In most cases of dictatorships, people end up being kind of pissed off against the dictators. That's what it takes usually for people to call their rulers "dictators". It is not how you would call someone you like. Exactly for the same reason, the more authoritarian the establishment is - the less they respect/support liberties, personal/political rights and privacy of the people: Because the establishment expects such rights and liberties will be probably used by the people against the establishment itself. And exactly this is why such liberties and rights MUST be protected always, by all costs.

I am not Egyptian myself, but through discussions with Egyptian friends and/or Egyptians I randomly met, this is what they think of their government.

This is getting off topic so I stop it here.

Then why bother blocking Signal? That pisses off people for no gain, since the people affected will just move to Whatsapp. Is it a symbolic gesture?

That is exactly my point: It seems as if Egyptian gov doesn't care if people use whatsapp. Which means something smells there...

Isn't that the point in all this? Blocking the popular messenger you can't spy on.