The Interior Ministry's decision to monitor social media websites has caused an uproar among Internet users in Egypt. It all began when Al-Watan newspaper published a leaked report emphasising the ministry's plan to impose an “electronic grip” on Internet activity on Sunday. On the following day the ministry announced that it had asked foreign technology firms to help monitor social media websites to prevent crime and track down terrorists. According to Reuters, seven foreign firms have offered proposals for monitoring social media websites, but the companies have not been named. The decision to impose surveillance on social media such as Twitter and Facebook, which played a vital role in the 25 January Revolution that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak, was understood by online activists as yet another sign that the government intends to stifle all forms of dissent. Such a conviction had been reinforced by the passing of a law that severely restricts freedom of expression on the streets via protests. For activists, the government seems to be trying to cow the opposition into enforced consent. According to Al-Watan's report, the ministry will enforce mechanisms enabling it to have access to data on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Google. The spread of the news prompted sarcastic hashtags on Twitter condemning the initiative, such as “We are being watched,” and “Send a message to your private informant.” One tweep wrote, “We are going back to Mubarak's era of suppression.” But the monitoring of social media is neither a violation of privacy nor a return to Mubarak's era but rather an “achievement in adopting technology,” said Deputy Interior Minister for Media and Public Relations Abdel-Fattah Othman. “Let's say we monitor the word ‘explosives',” Othman said. “Any post with this word in it would be under our surveillance.” “Explosives, explosives, explosives... We fooled you!” was one sarcastic Facebook post in response. Another ironically funny post said, “We will all be arrested.” Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim insisted on Monday that the new security system designed to monitor social media sites in Egypt is part of an effort to improve the ministry's technical capacities and will not interfere with freedom of expression. “The system aims to follow increasingly relevant security problems through social media such as terrorism, explosives manufacturing and assassination operations,” Ibrahim said in a statement to state news agency MENA. The system will also scan the sites to analyse and identify “destructive ideas”, he added, however, and conduct opinion polls to gauge their influence on the young. The programme will enhance decision-making by providing accurate information and statistics about topics the ministry considers illegal or against public morals and traditions. The new Interior Ministry monitoring system also enables extended search options through keywords, terms and expressions that violate the law, are against decency and societal norms, incite violence and spread chaos or strife. The system will enable it to monitor everything published on users' social media accounts in a “timeline format.” It will also enable the ministry to monitor the “followers, fans and friends” of certain accounts and add them to “special lists”. Magdi Al-Gallad, cheif editor of Al-Watan, said, “Imposing control on social networking will include all personal communications and everyone, and it will reach the point when the ministry is monitoring what goes on between a husband and his wife if they have contact through Facebook or Whatsapp”. Al-Gallad noted that Egyptians will not accept the credibility of external or internal monitoring of the social websites, adding, “even a father could not monitor his son, then how can the interior ministry do that?” Besides, he went on, to impose monitoring on social networks is in violation of the new constitution. Egypt has no laws regulating the use of digital information or online privacy. Article 57 of the newly passed 2014 Constitution, however, does state, “The right to privacy may not be violated, shall be protected and may not be infringed upon. Postal, telegraphic and electronic correspondences, telephone calls, and other means of communication are inviolable, and their confidentiality is guaranteed. They may not be confiscated, revealed or monitored except by virtue of a reasoned judicial order, for a definite period, and only in the cases defined by the law. The state shall protect the citizens' right to use all forms of public means of communications. Interrupting or disconnecting them, or depriving the citizens of using them arbitrarily is impermissible. This shall be regulated by law.” Khaled Adeeb, writer and stand-up comedian, wrote on his Twitter account, “The new monitoring system along with the new protest law is considered a return to the police state”. April 6 leader Amr Ali wrote, “Monitoring the Internet has already been illegally imposed since the Mubarak era. What is worse is that it will now be done openly and legally.” Unfortunately, people, Ali says, seem to be only tackling the issue in a funny way and have no intention to move against the decision and that's what the regime is relying on. “It does not make sense, after two great revolutions… for the ministry to restrict freedom,” Ibrahim said. He added that the new regime will not affect the rights and freedom of the citizens, but will create a balance between national security and freedom. “People wondering about the monitoring decision don't seem to know that it has been the status quo for years,” reads another tweet. In the last few months the Interior Ministry has already announced that it monitors social networking websites and has arrested many suspects who have set up Facebook pages used to incite violence against police and armed forces, who have been targeted by militant groups since the violent dispersal of a Muslim Brotherhood sit-in in August last year.
