Egypt: TikTok in Egypt – Where Rich and Poor Meet – and the State Watches Everything

After being released from detention in 2011, Egyptian engineer and activist Wael Ghonim told the media:

If you want to liberate a society, all you need is the internet.

He’d been taken into custody for his role in the revolution that toppled the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Part of the success of this unprecedented popular uprising was due to the role of social media in mobilising citizens around a common political cause.

In 2025, after a decade under the repressive government of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi,…