Some governments and telecommunications companies resort to blocking websites for political, social or security reasons, which raises controversy over the impact of these policies on public rights and freedoms. Blocking websites is a complex process that involves a financial and technical cost that may be high, especially when it is applied on a wide scale. In the case of countries that resort to austerity measures or to cutting subsidies for the neediest groups, the cost of blocking appears even more questionable, as its consequences are not limited to damaging the state’s image abroad but extend to direct costs that may reach tens of thousands of dollars annually, and that rise as the number of websites targeted for closure increases.
The number of blocked news websites in Egypt is estimated in the hundreds, as reliable reports indicate that the Egyptian authorities had blocked at least about 424 websites by September 2017, and the number rose to more than 500 websites by 2019. Blocking continued in the following years to include dozens of additional websites up to 2025, bringing the total number of blocked websites to 600 websites. This list includes 126 news websites and television channels, in addition to proxy websites and virtual private networks (VPN), as well as human rights and political websites.
Among the most prominent blocked news and information websites are the website of Al Jazeera and the website of Mada Masr, in addition to the website of Al-Manassa, and recently the Zawia3 platform, alongside a number of other news websites. Blocking measures have also extended to human rights organisations and non-governmental websites, such as the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms and Reporters Without Borders, in addition to websites offering services to circumvent blocking, such as the Tor Browser and various VPN and proxy websites.
The blocking of websites is usually carried out through all internet service providers in Egypt, based on central instructions issued to the relevant bodies. The government justifies these measures as aimed at combating support for terrorism and extremism and preventing the dissemination of terrorist ideas, according to official statements. However, these operations lack transparency, as the authorities do not announce which bodies issue blocking decisions, and there are no clear or declared mechanisms that allow website owners to object to or appeal against these decisions.
Recommended reading: A statement from Zawia3: on blocking, journalism and the public’s right to know
Censorship of the flow of information
Website blocking is defined, in its simplest form, as preventing access to internet websites or their services over the network, and it is usually carried out by internet service providers, government authorities or local network administrations. Blocking is considered one form of internet censorship, in which users are prevented from visiting specific websites for political, security, legal or social reasons.
According to a study published by technology researcher Mohamed Taher on the (SMEX) website, most Arab countries share the use of similar tactics to block websites and filter digital content, and sometimes resort to the same software and equipment to achieve this purpose. These methods range from traditional techniques to more advanced ones, but the goal they all share remains controlling the flow of information and access to content.
The most prominent blocking techniques fall into four main patterns: blocking the Internet Protocol address (IP Address), by preventing the flow of data to and from a particular address or port, a method whose effectiveness may be limited because website owners can change the IP address; blocking via the Domain Name System (DNS), where the service provider redirects users’ requests by providing false information, which prevents access to the website; in addition to the technique of Deep Packet Inspection, which allows data traffic to be analysed in detail, making it possible to block content based on its type or nature.
Although blocking may be presented as a legal measure within the framework of combating terrorism or confronting extremist and inciting discourse, the expansion of its use in Egypt draws continuous criticism from rights advocates. Observers believe that blocking has turned into a political and security tool used to limit the access of the authorities’ opponents to the digital space.
Recommended reading: Zawia3: a window blocked twice, and an international condemnation from 33 organisations and Canada’s McGill University
The cost of blocking a single website versus blocking several websites
From a purely technical standpoint, blocking a single website can be achieved by one of the simple methods (such as blocking its domain via DNS or its IP address) and at very limited or almost no cost if the service provider has an infrastructure ready for filtering. For example, blocking a single social media platform by government decision may require no more than distributing a simple list to internet service providers to add to their blocking systems. The main cost here lies in setting up the blocking systems (if they do not already exist) and not in adding the website itself. In other words, the marginal cost of adding another website to the blocking list is negligible compared with the fixed cost of establishing the blocking system in the first place.
By contrast, blocking several websites or a large number of websites requires larger cumulative investments. Although adding each new website to the ban list may in itself cost little, the widening scope of blocking imposes additional challenges: managing long lists of banned websites and domains, continuously updating them as website addresses change or alternative websites appear, and monitoring circumvention attempts. As the number of websites increases, the blocking body’s need for human and technical resources to follow the situation grows. For example, in China, where the number of blocked websites exceeds 100,000 websites, a simple solution is not enough; rather, an entire system (the Great Firewall) was built to monitor internet traffic at the national level. Likewise in Russia, the expansion of the list of banned websites led to the adoption of an automated censorship system (TSPU) using distributed DPI devices to apply blocking on a wide scale.
There is also an indirect effect: blocking a single website often does not have major economic repercussions or complex technical reactions, while blocking a large group of websites (especially if they are important platforms or have many users) may affect the performance of the internet network in general and require solutions to reduce collateral damage (such as the slowing of internet speeds or the blocking of legitimate services sharing the same platforms). Addressing these effects may add an extra cost. For example, when Russia blocked the Telegram application in 2018 by blocking millions of IP addresses of cloud servers, this had a negative effect on other services and required efforts and corrections to mitigate the excessive blocking, which represents an additional indirect cost (whether as service losses or as technical expenses to address them).
In brief, building a comprehensive blocking structure is the costly part. Once it is built, the scope of blocking expands (from one website to multiple websites) with a relatively smaller increase in cost, but that increase is not zero: the more content is banned, the greater the requirements for updating systems and pursuing the tactics users employ to circumvent the blocking.
In China, censorship has been a fundamental part of the internet’s architecture from the start. The government spent huge sums on the Great Firewall project and the comprehensive censorship system. The initial cost of building the Great Firewall (between 1998 and 2003) was estimated at more than USD 100 million, of which USD 60 million was allocated to the filtering components themselves. Nor did the expenditure stop there, as maintaining and updating censorship equipment is an ongoing process that requires continuous spending. As internet technologies develop, filtering hardware and software need to be updated constantly to maintain their effectiveness, which makes censorship programmes a permanent financial burden on the supervising bodies. In addition, China invested in monitoring domestic content through the Golden Shield Project (concerned with monitoring activity inside China), and The Economist estimated that the cost of this project exceeded USD 1.6 billion by 2013 . This system also involves a huge human cost, as the authorities employ more than two million people to monitor content on social networks and elsewhere. These figures show that maintaining cyber sovereignty according to the Chinese model requires enormous financial and human resources.
In Russia, until 2019, Russian censorship relied on blacklists that service providers were obliged to apply to block specific websites (via DNS or IP). Russia did not have a central firewall similar to China’s, which made the efficiency of blocking relatively limited. Since 2019, and specifically after the “sovereign internet” law, Russia began building a more advanced censorship infrastructure. The authorities oblige all internet service providers to install TSPU boxes and devices (domestically manufactured censorship and deep inspection equipment) on their networks. This initiative required huge investments by the state: a government document in 2024 revealed a plan to spend about RUB 60 billion (USD 660 million) from the state budget between 2025 and 2030 to modernise this censorship system and develop new devices and software for it. The 2023 budget of the media regulator Roskomnadzor amounted to about RUB 32.15 billion (USD 354 million), which means that the TSPU censorship project represents a significant additional expenditure relative to the budget. Although the law required telecommunications companies to install the devices (which implicitly means that they bear some of the operating cost), the Russian government has borne, and finances, the greater part of the purchase and development of the equipment. Initially, some companies showed hesitation because of the cost of installing these devices, which were described as expensive equipment imposed on operators, but the state applied pressure through legislation (and the imposition of fines on those who did not comply), which led to the wide deployment of this system. In conclusion, Russia moved to a model of central government investment to modernise censorship and blocking, similar in some respects to China’s, albeit with fewer resources.
What does blocking cost in Egypt?
Zawia3 put the question of the cost of blocking websites to five specialists and two official sources, but none of them gave a specific answer, which reflects the intense opacity surrounding blocking mechanisms and the bodies that implement them. In the face of this ambiguity, the investigation team traced the nature of the technology used and estimates of the financial cost associated with expanding the scope of blocking, especially in light of the stifling economic crisis Egypt is going through.
The Egyptian government has had to invest large sums in establishing and operating systems for blocking websites on the internet. In 2012, the newspaper Youm7 published a news item stating that the initial cost required for the state to be able to block pornographic websites ranged between EGP 70 million and EGP 100 million. Despite the passage of time and the development of technology, large-scale blocking operations remain financially costly and require significant resources. For example, recent reports revealed that the Egyptian authorities use Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technologies to intercept communications and impose censorship on the internet. The government contracted specialised foreign companies to provide this technology, most prominently the Canadian company Sandvine, which supplied Egypt with DPI devices that were used to block hundreds of websites and track the activities of opponents. Although the value of these technical contracts has not been officially disclosed, the volume of dealings suggests high costs; Sandvine itself announced in 2024 the termination of its partnership with the Egyptian government and the withdrawal of its technologies following controversy over the use of its products in human rights violations. This indicates that the government had spent considerable sums to obtain these advanced technologies over the past years.
In addition to the cost of purchasing and setting up blocking equipment, there is an ongoing operating cost borne by government bodies to ensure the effectiveness of censorship systems. This includes the expenses of maintaining the devices and periodically updating the lists of banned websites, in addition to the salaries of the technical and security teams tasked with monitoring and implementing blocking decisions. It is also worth noting the effect of blocking on the technical performance of internet networks, as the Egyptian Ministry of Communications stated in 2015 that internet speeds in Egypt might not withstand the application of a wide-scale blocking operation without a negative effect on the quality of service. This means that improving the infrastructure to avoid network slowdowns during blocking may require additional investments, which increases the overall cost borne by the state to ensure that websites are blocked while maintaining an acceptable level of connection quality.
The cost borne by private telecommunications companies
The burdens of blocking websites are not limited to the government alone, but also extend to the private telecommunications and internet companies technically tasked with implementing blocking decisions on their networks. These companies had to install equipment and software for content filtering in response to government decisions or court rulings imposing the blocking of certain websites. Officials at Egypt’s National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority estimated the total cost incurred by internet service providers to install filters for blocking pornographic websites at about EGP 25 million (equivalent to about USD 3.7 million). This step came in implementation of a ruling by the Administrative Court in a lawsuit that obliged the Egyptian government to block pornographic websites. Indeed, sources confirmed that internet companies in Egypt had, since the beginning of 2013, installed “filtering” devices on their networks to block any content the judicial authorities require to be blocked.
Despite this investment, experts and technicians pointed out that the effectiveness of blocking is not fully guaranteed in return for what was spent. Telecommunications regulation officials themselves explained that spending EGP 25 million on blocking pornographic websites would not completely prevent unwanted content, as technical means of circumventing the blocking quickly appear at negligible cost to users. For example, virtual private networks (VPN) or proxy servers can be used at minor cost to access banned websites, which puts the companies in a continuous technical race to close these loopholes. This race imposes continuous additional costs on telecommunications companies, whether in terms of updating blocking systems to keep pace with new circumvention methods, or in terms of addressing any network slowdown resulting from the heavy filtering of content. The list of websites that companies are required to block expanded considerably after 2017, to include hundreds of news and human rights websites, as well as VPN services themselves; the Egyptian authorities blocked about 261 websites providing virtual private network services and proxy tools in a single wave during August 2017. This expansion placed an additional burden on the companies, which had to deal with growing blocking lists that go beyond pornographic content to include wider ranges of political, media and security content.
In addition to the direct financial cost, private companies face the risk of penalties if they fail to implement blocking decisions. Egyptian laws impose large fines that may reach millions of pounds on telecommunications companies or website managers in the event of non-compliance with blocking decisions or the republication of a website that has been blocked. This makes companies keen to invest in blocking systems to avoid fines, which adds an unseen dimension to the costs in the form of legal and regulatory compliance.
The economic impact on journalists
The blocking of news websites dealt a crushing blow to the journalists who work for them. With the public cut off from these platforms, their financial resources (from advertising, subscriptions or support) declined sharply, forcing many of them to scale down their activity or close completely. A study issued by the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) indicates that about 300 young journalists lost their jobs or had their salaries cut in just the first weeks of the wave of blocking (May–June 2017). A number of independent media organisations could not survive this situation financially, so they stopped working altogether and closed their websites, which led to the dismissal of all their journalists. According to the AFTE report, at least six independent news websites closed completely as a result of the economic losses caused by blocking and laid off their entire staff. For example, the websites “Al-Bedaiah” and “Al-Badil”, two well-known independent media outlets, were blocked in June 2017 and were unable to continue afterwards; Al-Bedaiah stopped publishing completely by December 2017, while Al-Badil announced in April 2018 that it was closing because of the continued blocking that prevented its content from reaching the public. These and other cases mean, in practice, that dozens of journalists lost their jobs and sources of income overnight.
The impact of blocking on the Egyptian press sector as a whole
The impact of blocking websites was not limited to the blocked organisations and their journalists, but extended to the entire Egyptian press and media sector. As the noose tightened on independent outlets and they were silenced, the overall size of the independent media labour market shrank, which led to an increase in the supply of unemployed journalists or those looking for work, against a shrinking number of free media organisations that used to absorb them. This period also witnessed a growing monopolisation of the media by bodies loyal to the state or by security agencies, which reduced diversity and weakened professional competition. As a result of these combined factors (blocking, security pressure and financial crises), the press sector entered an acute economic and professional crisis, manifested in low wages, the spread of disguised unemployment and the emigration of talent.
Indicators and statistics clearly reflect this deterioration. For example, the Egyptian Journalists Syndicate was forced to activate an “unemployment pension” system to support its unemployed members. Syndicate data at the beginning of 2023 indicate that approximately 536 journalists submitted declarations stating that they did not work for any employer in order to obtain this pension. Despite the strict conditions (such as the requirement that the member has spent 10 years in the profession), unemployment benefit had actually been paid to 165 unemployed journalists by that time. This figure gives us a glimpse of how wide the segment of journalists left without stable work as a result of the closure or downsizing of organisations has become. In addition, living conditions deteriorated for those who continued in the profession: in a professional survey conducted at the end of 2024, shocking results emerged regarding journalists’ income, showing that about 13% of journalists work without any fixed salary at all, which means that they are in practice “volunteers” or working in conditions closer to forced labour. The proportion of those receiving irregular salaries also ranges between 13% and 17% of journalists, meaning that nearly a third of Egyptian journalists lack monthly financial stability. Worse still, about half of journalists (more than 49%) receive salaries below the official minimum wage (estimated at EGP 6,000). These unprecedented figures show the depth of the economic crisis ravaging the journalistic community in Egypt as the policies of restriction continue.
In these circumstances, many journalists had no choice but to change their career path or look for alternatives. Some journalists who lost their jobs at the blocked websites turned to freelance work as independent correspondents for foreign organisations or through social media platforms, in an attempt to secure an alternative income while continuing to practise the profession, albeit without a protective umbrella or permanent contracts. Others left the field of journalism completely for other, more stable fields of work, while some were forced to emigrate from Egypt in search of a freer media space or to obtain job opportunities at international organisations. At the institutional level, the blocked websites that carried on resorted to alternative solutions to reach the public (such as publishing via social media platforms or constantly creating new domains to evade blocking); but these solutions did not make up for the financial losses and did not bring back the same number of readers, which left their fragile situation unchanged. In general, it can be said that the period from 2017 to 2024 represented the peak of the Egyptian press’s economic and professional decline: the number of independent outlets shrank, and the dominance of the state and the businessmen close to it over the scene increased, so that the conditions of journalistic work deteriorated for everyone. Perhaps the paradox of this reality becomes clear when we learn that many journalists in Egypt have come to rely on the government training and technology allowance (which does not exceed approximately EGP 2,000 per month) as a basic component of their income to secure basic living requirements, when this allowance had been intended to improve professional capabilities and work technologies.
Journalist and trade unionist Eman Ouf says in a statement to Zawia3 that the impact of blocking extends to constitute a direct economic blow to journalists and independent media organisations. When a news website is blocked, access to it becomes complicated, which reduces the volume of engagement and views and affects advertising revenue, since advertising depends mainly on viewing and engagement rates. Advertising, as a main source of funding for news websites, is also greatly affected by blocking, as no blocked website can attract advertisements, which leads to a decline in revenue that is reflected in journalists’ salaries. As the economic situation of these organisations deteriorates, they become unable to pay salaries, which pushes them to lay off journalists, and consequently unemployment increases in the journalistic community. Freedom is the other face of a decent living: when independent websites are allowed to work freely without blocking or restriction, they can achieve a minimum of economic stability for those who work for them and provide them with a decent life commensurate with the rising cost of living.
The official body responsible for blocking decisions in Egypt
Since the start of the wave of website blocking in Egypt in 2017, the process has lacked transparency regarding the official body that issues blocking decisions. When the authorities began blocking news and other websites in May 2017, no official institution announced direct responsibility for the decision. At least 20 websites, most of them news and media websites, were suddenly closed at that time by an unknown body within the Egyptian government. This ambiguity raised questions as to whether security bodies (such as the intelligence services or National Security) were behind the blocking orders, away from the declared institutional frameworks.
Over time, the legal picture of the bodies authorised to censor the internet in Egypt became clearer. Currently, it can be said that several official bodies share responsibility for issuing and implementing blocking decisions:
- Investigating authorities and the Public Prosecution: Under the Law on Combating Information Technology Crimes of 2018, the competent investigating authority (the Public Prosecution or an investigating judge) has the right to issue an order blocking a website if it has evidence that its content threatens national security or the country’s security or economy. This power is considered judicial/governmental because it passes through the judiciary.
- Inquiry and law enforcement bodies (the security agencies): The same law allows, in cases of emergency or imminent danger, the security agencies (such as the police or National Security) to take an urgent decision to temporarily block a particular website or content, provided that the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (the government body regulating the sector) is notified so that it implements the blocking immediately. This exceptional procedure means that the security agencies can initiate blocking directly in certain circumstances before a judicial decision is issued, provided that the matter is later presented to the investigating authorities within 48 hours, and then to the competent court for review.
- The Supreme Council for Media Regulation: A governmental regulatory body that was reorganised under the Press and Media Regulation Law of 2018, and was granted broad censorship powers that include blocking news or media websites that violate publishing laws or operate without a licence. Article (6) of this law provides for the Council’s right to block the violating website and refer those responsible for it for accountability. The Council’s powers did not stop at news websites; according to Article (19) of the same law, the Supreme Media Council can also block personal accounts on social media if their followers exceed 5,000 and content deemed to violate the law or to threaten public security is published through them. The Supreme Media Council has actually exercised these powers, as its third annual report stated that it had issued decisions blocking 212 accounts on Facebook, 10 accounts on Twitter and 5 accounts on Instagram for various violations. This confirms that the Supreme Council has become a key body responsible for imposing mass censorship on the internet in Egypt.
- The National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA): The Authority is considered the executive link between the aforementioned bodies and the telecommunications companies that provide internet service. When a blocking decision is issued by an investigating authority or the Supreme Media Council, or even in the case of an urgent security notification, the Authority officially notifies the telecommunications companies of the list of websites or services to be blocked. As a governmental regulatory body, the Authority ensures that the companies implement these instructions and monitors their compliance.
In short, it can be said that the official body responsible for blocking decisions in Egypt is not a single, stand-alone entity, but a network comprising judicial, regulatory and security authorities. Officially and legally, blocking decisions are taken through the Public Prosecution or the Supreme Media Council, but in practice the security agencies may take the initiative to impose blocking and then later seek to provide legal cover through the judicial and regulatory bodies. This distribution of tasks and powers among several bodies gives internet censorship a wide reach, and at the same time creates an overlap that may make it difficult to determine direct responsibility for blocking in some cases.
The legal framework for imposing blocking decisions
Legal expert Mohamed Sayed explains, speaking to “Zawia3”, that blocking in Egypt is based on several laws that grant the authorities broad powers, most notably Anti-Terrorism Law No. 94 of 2015, which allows the blocking of websites supporting terrorist ideas, and the Law on Combating Information Technology Crimes No. 175 of 2018, ratified by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, which regulates digital content and grants the right to block websites considered a threat to national security or the national economy, while imposing fines on visitors to these websites. Sayed also points to the Press and Media Regulation Law No. 180 of 2018, which obliges digital media to obtain licences and grants the Supreme Council for Media Regulation powers to block violating websites. Sayed stresses that these laws are used extensively to block independent news websites, which contradicts Article 57 of the Egyptian Constitution, which guarantees the right to knowledge, as well as Egypt’s international obligations regarding freedom of expression.
The legal expert stresses that these laws are used on a wide scale to block independent news websites, which, in his view, constitutes a restriction on press freedom and may weaken the climate of free media in Egypt. For example, the “Zawia3” website was blocked in February 2025 and again in March of the same year, which drew wide criticism from human rights organisations. Despite the importance of these laws, Sayed believes that some blocking policies are not in line with the texts of the Egyptian Constitution, which in its Article 57 guarantees press freedom and citizens’ right of access to information, and prohibits the arbitrary disruption or suspension of public means of communication. These policies also contradict Egypt’s international obligations relating to freedom of expression and media freedom.
The imposition of website blocking in Egypt rests on a system of legislation adopted by the state in recent years with the aim of regulating digital content and combating cybercrime. This legal system took shape gradually, starting from reliance on general interpretations in earlier laws and reaching the enactment of special, explicit laws regulating the mechanism and procedures of blocking. The following are the most prominent features of this legal framework:
- Telecommunications Regulation Law No. 10 of 2003: This law is the basic legislation regulating the telecommunications sector in Egypt. Although it does not contain explicit provisions on blocking internet websites on the basis of content, one of its articles gave broad powers to sovereign bodies in a state of emergency. The legislator allowed the security authorities (sovereign bodies) to intervene to cut off or monitor telecommunications services if they considered this necessary for the country’s security. The authorities relied on this loose power as an implicit legal basis for taking censorship measures on the internet when a state of emergency was declared. For example, after terrorist incidents in April 2017, Egypt declared a state of emergency, which gave the president and the security bodies comprehensive censorship authority over communications, including the internet. This authority was used during 2017 to block websites before the subsequent legislation regulating blocking was issued. Although Egypt’s 2014 Constitution provided in its Article 71 for a ban on prior censorship of newspapers and media or their suspension, the authorities found support in the state of emergency and in other laws to circumvent this constitutional ban on the pretext of protecting national security.
- Anti-Terrorism Law No. 94 of 2015: This law came in the context of escalating security threats and included an article allowing the authorities to block websites that are used to incite terrorist acts or that broadcast data directly threatening national security. This law led to the codification of some measures restricting electronic content under the heading of combating terrorism, and was considered a prelude to introducing the concept of website blocking as a legal tool in subsequent legislation.
- Law on Combating Information Technology Crimes No. 175 of 2018 (known as the internet crimes law or the cybercrime law): This law is considered the most comprehensive framework to date for regulating website blocking. It devoted its Article (7) to setting out the procedures for blocking websites in detail. According to the text of Article (7), the investigating authority (the Public Prosecution or an investigating judge) has the right to issue an order blocking any website or several websites if there is evidence that the website broadcasts content constituting a crime punishable by law and which may represent a threat to national security or endanger the country’s security or economy. The law obliges the investigating authority to present the blocking order to the competent criminal court within 24 hours for consideration and the issuance of a reasoned decision of acceptance or rejection within a period not exceeding 72 hours. The law also regulated the case of urgent blocking in the third paragraph of the same article, where it allowed, by way of exception, that in cases of imminent danger the judicial law enforcement bodies (such as the security agencies) may notify the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority so that it orders service providers to block the content or website temporarily and immediately before obtaining the court’s permission, provided that a report of the procedure is drawn up within 48 hours and presented to the prosecution and then to the court to approve the continuation or suspension of the blocking. The law set relative guarantees in this framework, such as restricting blocking to websites through which specific crimes are committed, requiring a judicial order within a short period, and the automatic lapse of the blocking decision if a decision is issued that there are no grounds for criminal proceedings or if an acquittal ruling is issued. The law also allowed those against whom a blocking decision was issued (the website owner or the affected party) and the Public Prosecution to file a grievance against the blocking decision before the criminal court after a specified period, in order to challenge it. In addition, the law imposed severe penalties (imprisonment and fines reaching millions of pounds) on service providers (telecommunications companies) if they refrain from implementing blocking decisions issued in accordance with its provisions, and the fine may reach a minimum of EGP 3 million and a maximum of EGP 20 million, with the revocation of the violating company’s licence if the failure to implement the blocking results in the death of one or more persons or harm to national security.
- Law No. 180 of 2018 on the Regulation of the Press, Media and the Supreme Council for Media Regulation: This law came to restructure the media system and set controls on media content published through both traditional and digital media. It granted the Supreme Council for Media Regulation broad powers as the competent regulatory body. Article (6) of the law provides for the Council’s right to take measures against news or media websites that operate without a licence or publish content that violates the law or codes of professional ethics; among those measures is the power to block the violating website, blog or account by its decision. The Council also has the power to withdraw the violating outlet’s licence to practise media activity. In addition, the law expanded the concept of blocking to include the activity of individuals on social media, as its Article (19) empowered the Supreme Media Council to block personal accounts on social networks and blogs if their followers exceed 5,000 and their content includes spreading rumours or false news or anything that would threaten national security or public order. This last provision brought thousands of influential electronic pages and accounts under the Council’s direct censorship. Under these powers, the Supreme Media Council has actually issued decisions blocking websites, the most famous of which was its decision in October 2023 to block the website of the newspaper Mada Masr for 6 months on the grounds of practising journalistic activity without a licence and violating Article 6 of the law. As we mentioned earlier, the Council blocked hundreds of accounts on social media during its annual reports.
- Executive regulations and regulatory decisions: In addition to the aforementioned laws, executive regulations were issued detailing the procedures for applying blocking. For example, the Prime Minister issued Decree No. 1699 of 2020 on the executive regulations of the Law on Combating Information Technology Crimes, which included controls on implementing blocking orders and grievances against them in coordination between the judicial and regulatory bodies. The Supreme Media Council also issued a penalties regulation in 2019 that specified the penalties and measures (including blocking) that the Council can take against digital media violations. These regulations reinforce the legal framework and define the mechanisms of cooperation between the various bodies, for example by specifying a notification form from the prosecution to the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority regarding a website to be blocked, or a notification mechanism from the Supreme Council to hosting companies to remove violating content.
An assault on the citizen’s right
Eman Ouf believes that the blocking of independent news websites represents a direct assault on citizens’ right to know and on journalists’ right to practise their profession freely, as the websites that have been blocked are not merely ordinary media platforms, but websites that chose to stand to the left of the authorities, not subject to their directions, and that work to provide genuine professional journalism that discusses citizens’ crises and their political, economic and social issues.
Ouf adds that, in the political activist’s view, if we examine the nature of the blocked websites, we will find that they are all independent platforms, siding with citizens and their problems, and not platforms affiliated with the authorities. When journalists succeed in overcoming the restrictions imposed on them, blocking comes as a final repressive step to prevent information from reaching citizens. Besides blocking, journalists also face campaigns of prosecution and restriction, and the evidence of this is that more than 25 journalists have been arrested recently, which reflects a systematic targeting of journalists who insist on practising their profession with professionalism and independence.
A source at the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority says in a statement to “Zawia3” that the reason for the blocking may be technical, denying that there are other reasons for blocking websites that do not support extremism, apart from some websites that were blocked in earlier periods, which directly supported terrorism and incited extremism, and therefore had overt positions that could not be tolerated in a previous era.
The source, who declined to be named, says that many countries around the world follow policies of blocking websites for multiple reasons, with China, Ethiopia, Uzbekistan and Cuba topping the list of countries that impose restrictions on access to some digital platforms.
The source concludes by saying that there are four main motives that drive countries to block websites, most notably: publishing content that incites terrorism, promoting pornography, supporting illegal migration, or involvement in financial crimes such as extortion and money laundering.
Throughout the period from 2017 until the writing of this report, the policy of blocking news websites in Egypt has led to a severe weakening of the economic and administrative structure of the media sector. Journalists were, and still are, among the biggest losers in this equation, as hundreds of them have lost their jobs or a large part of their income, and have been forced into difficult choices such as leaving the profession or emigrating. As for those who remained in the media field, they often work under the weight of stifling financial and living pressures, and amid censorship restrictions that limit the prospects for professional development. In view of this bleak outcome, the Journalists Syndicate has repeatedly warned of the serious “repercussions” of continued blocking and censorship repression for the future of the profession. With the beginning of 2024, and despite some official promises to review these policies within the National Dialogue, the reality remained as it was: independent websites blocked or under censorship, and journalists paying a heavy price through unemployment, poverty and professional marginalisation. Rescuing Egyptian journalism from this crisis requires fundamental measures to reopen the public sphere, lift the blocking of websites and guarantee media freedom, so that the journalism profession can regain its economic health and its role as an effective fourth estate in society.
Editorial correction: The first version of the report stated that the Supreme Council for Media Regulation’s decision to block the Mada Masr website for six months was issued in November 2019; the correct date is October 2023.
Editorial correction: The first version of the report stated that urgent blocking initiated by inquiry bodies is presented to the judiciary within 24 hours; the correct position, according to Article 7 of the Law on Combating Information Technology Crimes No. 175 of 2018, is that the inquiry body presents a report on the procedures to the investigating authorities within 48 hours, after which the matter is presented to the competent court. It also stated that the revocation of the service provider’s licence results from “serious harm or death”; the correct position, according to Article 30 of the same law, is that it results from the death of one or more persons or harm to national security.
Editorial correction: The first version of the report stated that the Supreme Council for Media Regulation was established under the Press and Media Regulation Law of 2018; the correct position is that it was established under Law No. 92 of 2016 on the Institutional Regulation of the Press and Media, and the 2018 law then reorganised it.
