The nation’s talking heads last night zeroed in on the gremlins that hit Meta’s social media platforms yesterday. Forecasts of a drop in cigarette prices after the Eid holidays also got coverage on the airwaves.

The outages at Facebook and Instagram got hosts and pundits talking, and gave Masaa DMC host Osama Kamal the perfect excuse to delve into memes posted by rival social media network X owner Elon Musk “gloating” over the outage (watch, runtime 1:35). Kamal also pointed to another post by Musk stating “If you’re reading this post, it’s because our servers are working,” before covering working theories of why Meta’s sites were down — spanning from potential cyber attacks, the cutting of subsea cables, and Facebook’s own explanation that it was a technical malfunction. IT experts also phoned in to explain the causes of the outage on Kelma Akhira (watch, runtime: 8:49), Salet El Tahrir (watch, runtime: 5:59), and Yahduth Fi Masr (watch, runtime 4:12).

Cigarette prices are expected to fall following the Eid holidays, Eastern CEO Hany Aman said in a phone call with Kelma Akhira’s Lamees El Hadidi (watch, runtime 9:35). Cigarette prices on the black market have already dropped to EGP 33 from EGP 60, approaching the official price of EGP 30, he said. Aman expressed confidence that the parallel market will completely fizzle out within two months, seeing as the company is now covering market demand and has received shipments of raw materials worth USD 400 mn.

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