After being launched from detention in 2011, Egyptian engineer and activist Wael Ghonim informed the media:
If you wish to liberate a society, all you want is the web.
He’d been taken into custody for his function within the revolution that toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak. A part of the success of this unprecedented standard rebellion was as a result of function of social media in mobilising residents round a standard political trigger.
In 2025, after a decade beneath the repressive authorities of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, it’s honest to say that little has remained of Ghonim’s imaginative and prescient. Social media use in Egypt is carefully guarded by the authorities to detect indicators of opposition. Residents are routinely detained, even for the slightest criticism of the federal government.
In 2018 Egypt launched a brand new regulation, apparently to curb the issue of on-line misinformation and disinformation. This regulation is, in actuality, usually used to stifle dissent. Egyptians right this moment function inside unclear boundaries of what’s permissible to say on-line. The result’s widespread self-censorship for worry of arrest.
As a scholar of political communication and new media I’ve written books on world social media. I educate college students concerning the social and political affect of digital and social media in Egypt. The video sharing platform TikTok is a frequent topic in my lessons as a result of it reveals each the liberating and the repressive results of social media use in Egypt.
TikTok stands out for its capability to create viral movies and sudden micro-celebrities. This has made it a lightning rod for presidency crackdowns. But it surely has additionally linked individuals throughout socio-economic divides and bred a energetic new cultural and political debate – one which’s not as straightforward for the federal government to police.
TikTok in Egypt
Since 2020, TikTok has turn into immensely standard in Egypt, with an estimated 33 million customers over 18 years previous.
Whereas TikTok hasn’t taken on the express political dimension that Fb or Twitter did over a decade in the past, it has already turn into the theatre of a sequence of incidents which have landed its customers within the crosshairs of the authorities. This has uncovered political rifts and tensions.
Fb was the distinguished social media in the course of the revolution.
Sherif9282/Wikimedia Commons
A lot of the incidents are associated to the power of TikTok to work as a “virality engine” – even customers with few followers can acquire a sudden and generally problematic celeb.
However whereas Egyptian authorities have evidently been cracking down on TikTok customers, there have been no concrete plans to ban the platform. In reality, some authorities branches have used it to advance their very own initiatives. The Ministry of Youth and Sports activities, for instance, signed an settlement with TikTok to launch the Egyptian TikTok Creator Hub, designed to coach youth on utilizing social media responsibly.
Ladies focused
Since 2020, Egyptian authorities have arrested TikTok customers beneath expenses starting from the violation of household values to the unfold of false info and allegations of belonging to terrorist organisations. Most of those TikTokers didn’t publish specific sexual or political content material, making the fees in opposition to them seem exaggerated. These instances counsel the authorities are carefully monitoring the platform, following strict ethical and political issues.
Essentially the most excessive profile instances have concerned younger ladies, most notably Haneen Hossam and Mawada Eladham, who have been arrested in 2020 for violating household values. Article 25 of Egypt’s anti-cybercrime regulation states that content material “violating the family principles and values upheld by Egyptian society may be punished by a minimum of six months’ imprisonment and/or a fine”. It leaves the definition of household values purposefully obscure.
Observers have famous that this vagueness has allowed the regulation to be utilized in a spread of various instances. Greater than a dozen ladies have confronted comparable expenses, endured pretrial detention and been handed prolonged jail sentences.
The arbitrary nature of most of the expenses suggests a doable deeper motive: policing the presence of younger ladies in digital areas the place they will acquire affect and monetary independence exterior conventional household or work constructions.
TikTok has given abnormal customers in Egypt unprecedented visibility, in some instances permitting them to problem social norms, usually via humour. This seems to have unsettled authorities, who seem to have sought to ship a message to the broader inhabitants.
Arrests
Such arrests point out that TikTok content material that touches on politically delicate issues, even in jest, is posing a brand new sort of problem for the Egyptian authorities. The state is especially involved with viral content material which may deliver consideration to its poor human rights file. This contains notoriously dangerous situations in jails.
‘Egypt’ and ‘Masr’
On the identical time, the platform is proving in a position to join individuals from very totally different social and financial backgrounds, as it’s seen to do globally.
Egypt may be very hierarchical. Small, prosperous elite teams dwell in a separate and secluded socio-economic actuality from nearly all of the inhabitants. Thirty p.c of Egyptians dwell beneath the poverty line.
On TikTok, the extra privileged, cosmopolitan part of society is known as “Egypt”. The poor and disenfranchised are “Masr” (مصر), the Arabic phrase for Egypt.
TikTok is aimed toward producing viral content material greater than it’s a networking website, like Fb, that’s primarily based on pre-existing social connections. The result’s a digital widespread house the place the 2 sides can work together in new methods. This engenders distinctive social and cultural dynamics additionally noticed in different international locations.
“Egypt” watches “Masr” create every kind of content material – from singing and dancing routines to dwell begging. “Masr” will get to peek into the in any other case inaccessible world of the rich.
Within the present local weather of an financial disaster, this divide may be obvious. Whereas most Egyptians are fighting inflation, the price of residing and unemployment, the rich flaunt their life on TikTok.
When rich TikTokers publish content material complaining about comparatively petty points like an extended look forward to valet parking at a luxurious restaurant or boast about their weekly allowance, it reveals their disconnect from the on a regular basis hardships confronted by the much less privileged.
Customers are in a position to remark freely on one another’s movies, sharing their unvarnished opinions. A pupil boasting about their weekly allowance of three,000 EGP (US$60) may be informed, “This is some people’s monthly salary.”
Political penalties
Because it first appeared in 2020, TikTok in Egypt has developed from a platform primarily geared in the direction of foolish and entertaining content material by youngsters. It’s turn into an outlet for individuals of all ages enthusiastic about gathering info, maintaining abreast of present traits and occasions, and likewise an area for political engagement, particularly on the problem of Palestine.
There hasn’t been an apparent politicisation of TikTok in Egypt but and there may by no means be, given the strict policing by authorities. However TikTok’s capability to reveal divisions in Egyptian society and join residents throughout demographic cleavages might doubtlessly have surprising political penalties within the close to future.
Shahd Atef contributed to the analysis for this text
