Cairo – Over 50,000 Facebook pages have been closed for spreading destructive thoughts among Egypt's youth, an Egyptian parliamentarian said. Speaking to "Ala Masaolity" (On My Responsibility) TV show aired on Sada El-Balad TV channel on Sunday, Undersecretary of the Parliament's Communications Committee Ahmed Badawy said the terrorist groups used such Facebook pages to recruit Egypt's youth to carry out terrorist attacks. Egypt's security men managed to arrest all the terrorists, who created such pages on the social networking website, Badawy noted. "These Facebook pages are used to attack state institutions and spread false news about Egypt," Badawy said, calling for drafting laws to criminalize such acts as soon as possible. In September 2014, the Interior Ministry began a social media surveillance program to track security threats such as terrorism. The interior minister said at the time that the program aims "to follow increasing security problems such as terrorism and explosives manufacturing, as well as analyzing and identifying destructive ideas and conducting opinion polls to gauge their influence on youth."
