Since the establishment of the High Council for Cyber Security in December 2014, the [Egyptian] regime has acquired increasingly sophisticated technological capabilities, used unprecedented measures to block internet activity, passed restrictive internet legislation and now surveils users and censors content on a scale never seen before. Much of this has been facilitated by Western companies, states and regional allies who have been more than happy to sell potentially repressive technologies to the authoritarian regime, emboldening Sisi’s attempts to eliminate freedom of expression in Egypt. As the regime continues in its “fight against existing and potential spaces where dissent might be possible,” the digital realm has become an increasingly important space for both dissent and its subsequent arrest.

Egypt's Arrested Digital Spaces