Contents:
- Methodology
- Introduction
- First: Legal and Legislative Restrictions Imposed on Content Creators and Digital Expression
- Second: Security Control and Reshaping the Digital Space
- Third: Undermining Personal Rights Under the Pretext of Protecting Society
- Conclusion and Recommendations
Methodology:
First: This paper was based on a combined methodology: First of which are three interviews with lawyers and researchers specializing in digital freedom of expression via Signal. These interviews addressed the legal issues faced by content creators, common patterns of charges in security prosecutions and trials, as well as the lawyers’ views of the impact of state policies and practices on the digital space.
Second: Reviewing and analyzing several Egyptian laws and legislations that regulate the digital space and content creation. including the Anti-Cybercrime Law No. 175 of 2018 and the Press and Media Regulation Law No. 180 of 2018, in addition to executive decisions and official statements issued by relevant authorities. The aim was to examine the clarity of such legislations, the scope of its application, and its practical impact on the activities of content creators.
Third: the paper’s authors collected and analyzed a set of documented cases in which content creators were arrested or subjected to legal prosecution in recent years, whether due to their published content or their economic activities. This analysis is based on reports from AFTE’s Monitoring and Documentation Unit covering the period from 2020 to 2024, with a focus on recurring patterns of violations.
Finally: Comparing the state’s practices with international and regional human rights conventions and standards—particularly those related to freedom of expression, the right to privacy, and guarantees of fair trial— to assess the extent to which local practices and legislations comply with Egypt’s international obligations.
Through this approach, the paper seeks to provide a comprehensive picture of the state’s interaction with content creators on social media platforms, with a particular focus on TikTok as a central space for engagement and expression in Egypt.
Introduction
Since 2020, security and judicial campaigns against content creators on social media have escalated, with particular intensity directed at TikTok users. These campaigns expanded further in 2025. They rely on a combination of vague legal provisions—such as articles related to “public decency” and “family values” in the Anti-Cybercrime Law No. 175 of 2018—and executive practices ranging from arbitrary arrests and detentions to media smear campaigns and digital surveillance.
The impact of this approach goes beyond merely restricting digital content; it extends to fundamental individual rights, including freedom of expression and creativity, the right to privacy, and guarantees of fair trial. The use of such mechanisms reflects a broader pattern of moral and social control of the digital world, undermining freedoms and creating a climate of uncertainty—particularly among young content creators, who represent a growing segment of Egypt’s digital and social economy.
This paper analyzes the Egyptian Constitution, the legal provisions applied against content creators, and the security and judicial practices targeting them. It explores how such practices affect digital rights and freedoms, while comparing them to international standards of democracy and freedom of expression. Aiming to provide practical recommendations to ensure the protection of digital rights.
The paper is structured into three sections:
- Section One discusses the legal and legislative restrictions imposed on digital expression and content creators in Egypt.
- Section Two focuses on security and judicial practices against content creators since 2020, identifying patterns that may be considered systematic.
- Section Three examines how these patterns contribute to redefining the digital expression and their impact on fundamental rights protected by the Egyptian Constitution, national law, and international treaties ratified by Egypt—including the rights to freedom of expression, privacy, and fair trial.
First: Legal and Legislative Restrictions Imposed on Content Creators and Digital Expression
TikTok witnessed rapid growth in Egypt between 2020 and 2025, transforming from a limited entertainment app into one of the most influential social media platforms, especially among young people, according to reports from the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority. TikTok usage increased by more than 194% during the COVID-19 pandemic. The number of users ranged between 15–18 million in 2021, rose to about 23.7 million in early 2022, reached 32.94 million in 2024, and climbed to 41.3 million in 2025, with annual growth rates between 25–39%. TikTok’s appeal lies in its short, engaging videos—often 15 seconds long—enhanced with audio and visual effects, which can be easily produced, consumed, and shared without technical expertise, which facilitates the spread of content and broadens participation across diverse social groups. And from a monetary perspective, TikTok has become a key destination for content creators thanks to multiple monetization mechanisms: sponsored advertisements, brand collaborations, digital tips and gifts during live streams, in addition to the app’s marketplace, which allows users to sell products and transform their digital fame into a direct business. This significant growth makes TikTok a central platform for social, cultural, and economic influence among Egyptian youth.[1]
Egyptian authorities, however, approach TikTok and digital expression more broadly as a security and regulatory arena rather than a public space for free creativity and expression. Since the late 2010s, state intervention has expanded through vague legal provisions—such as the Anti-Cybercrime Law—alongside direct surveillance and security practices. This has led to widespread crackdowns and prosecutions of TikTok users and content creators, particularly targeting youth and working-class communities, revealing a socio-economic dimension to these campaigns.
The practices documented over recent years demonstrate that the authorities do not target political content alone, but have gone beyond it to encompass broad categories of users and creators of entertainment, social, and educational content that do not present any oppositional discourse. This confirms that the objective is not limited to confronting a specific political narrative, but rather to restricting the digital public sphere as a whole, shrinking the spaces that social platforms provide for free expression, interaction, and the circulation of ideas and information outside official agencies. This approach has contributed to the creation of a general climate of fear and caution, which in turn has reinforced self-censorship among users and transformed the use of platforms such as TikTok into an activity fraught with legal risks[2].
At the legislative level, the enactment of the Anti-Cybercrime Law No. 175 of 2018 constituted one of the main pillars of this restriction. Producing a broader legal framework that expanded the definition of crimes related to the use of the internet and social media, introducing custodial penalties in violation of Articles 67 and 71 of the Egyptian Constitution, which prohibit the imposition of custodial penalties for crimes committed due to the publicity of artistic, literary, or intellectual products or publishing offenses. The law also imposes financial fines for acts framed in vague and broadly worded terms, whose elements are difficult to define precisely. Among the most prominent of these is Article (25), which criminalizes “violations of family principles or values in Egyptian society”. a formulation for which the legislator has provided no clear definition, either in the letter of the law or in its executive regulations. This ambiguity has opened the door to broad and inconsistent interpretations, enabling the use of the provision as a tool for arbitrary prosecution[3].
In addition to Article 25, the problem extends to the very structure of the law, where vague terms such as “public order,” “national security,” and “social peace” are repeatedly invoked without precise definition or limits. These expressions are used to justify broad restrictions on digital freedom of expression, including website blocking and criminal prosecution. For example, Article (7) of the law allows investigative authorities to block websites without judicial oversight, under the pretext of protecting national security—an explicit contradiction of the constitutional guarantees enshrined in Article (65) of the 2014 Constitution, which affirms freedom of expression and publication by all means.
Furthermore, the law grants wide-ranging powers under Article 6 for judicial control based on vague phrases such as “whenever it serves to uncover the truth,” which opens the door to extensive surveillance and data collection without effective judicial oversight. This aspect has been one of the main grounds for objection to the law since its enactment, as it permits the collection and retention of internet users’ data, resulting in mass surveillance of user activities, threatening the right to privacy, and undermining trust in the digital space as a secure environment for communication and expression[4].
Article (27) of the Cybercrime Law further exemplifies this approach, imposing penalties for merely creating, managing, or using an account on an information network “intended to commit or facilitate the commission of a crime.” This provision effectively criminalizes what may be considered “the crime tool” rather than the criminal act itself. It raises concerns regarding equality before the law, as penalties vary depending on the medium used, stigmatizing internet use itself as a potentially suspicious activity, and imposing disproportionate legal responsibility on digital platforms[5].
Beyond the Cybercrime Law, the Press and Media Regulation Law No. 180 of 2018 reinforced this restrictive framework by granting judicial and security authorities, as well as the Supreme Council for Media Regulation, the power to block websites and personal accounts with more than 5,000 followers, on grounds such as national security, publishing of false news, or contempt of religion. This provision represents an unprecedented expansion in subjecting personal social media accounts to the same restrictions imposed on media institutions, without recognizing the fundamental differences between professional journalism and individual expression[6]. Additional legal amendments, such as those to Law No. 10 of 1972 concerning non-disciplinary dismissals, and administrative decisions like publication bans, collectively form a comprehensive legal system that enables the state to intervene in the digital sphere at multiple levels[7].
At the end, the interventions targeting TikTok in Egypt do not reflect the issuance of legislative restrictions specifically tailored to the platform, but rather reveal a broader approach adopted by the authorities to restrict the digital sphere as a whole. This has been achieved by expanding the scope of existing legislations originally designed to regulate internet use and social media. The rapid spread of TikTok and its user base—especially among young people and social segments that were previously uninvolved in digital public debate—turned the platform into a focal arena where these restrictive practices have intensified. This expansion of enforcement makes it unclear to differentiate between legitimate regulation of digital use and punitive interference with forms of expression, transforming TikTok, like other digital platforms, from a space for communication and participation into a domain of constant surveillance, in this sense, TikTok serves as a revealing example of how the existing legislative framework—with its vague formulations and limited safeguards—impacts widely used digital platforms, undermining the right to freedom of expression and expanding the scope of criminalization to include digital practices that pose no real harm or threat to society[8].
Accordingly, the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) concludes that the Anti-Cybercrime Law, in its current form, conflicts with international standards. This is evident in the overly broad definition of crimes, the granting of wide discretionary powers to law enforcement authorities without strict rules, and imposing custodial penalties for acts of free expression. AFTE stresses that concepts such as “family values” or “public order” cannot legitimately serve as grounds for criminalization without clear and precise legislative definitions, as they otherwise become tools of social and political control rather than for protecting rights. Accordingly, legitimate limits on digital freedom of expression must be built on three main foundations: first, the precise definition of criminalized acts, excluding vague and elastic language; Second, freedom of expression–related lawsuits should not result in custodial penalties, with judicial intervention limited to the most serious offenses and applied within the narrowest possible scope. Third, effective judicial oversight must be ensured over blocking, surveillance, and data collection procedures. Without these safeguards, such restrictions cannot be considered a means of protecting society; rather, they constitute a fundamental infringement of constitutional rights, a breach of Egypt’s international obligations, and a dismantling of the digital sphere as a legitimate public space for expression and participation.
Second: Security Control and Reshaping the Digital Space
In recent years, TikTok has emerged as one of the most widespread digital platforms in Egypt, thanks to its short-video style, ease of production, and rapid-spread algorithms. These features have enabled ordinary users—mostly young people and marginalized social segments— to gain wide public visibility in a short period of time, bypassing traditional media and cultural production channels. TikTok has thus transformed from an entertainment platform into a new socio-cultural and economic space that continually reshapes patterns of public visibility and gives opportunities for influencing the audience outside the established institutional narrative[9].
This rapid transformation has posed a complex challenge for Egyptian authorities. On the one hand, TikTok represents a space that is difficult to control through traditional media regulations. On the other hand, TokTok gives the opportunity for new actors capable of influencing public opinion—or at least reshaping everyday discussions about life, economy, identity, class, and even politics, sometimes in satirical or indirect ways. That bypasses class and geographical differences, connecting users from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and allowing them to interact within a single space without institutional oversight. Such openness has resulted in vibrant cultural and social debates that are difficult to steer or predict. Allowing users to express their daily experiences, economic struggles. content that may appear spontaneous or apolitical but carries deep social significance. This type of expression presents a dual challenge for the authorities; it does not necessarily fall under traditional categories of political opposition, yet it can undermine the official narratives of stability, social discipline, and the acceptable ways of generating wealth[10].
From this perspective, the state’s engagement with TikTok and its users can be understood within a broader framework of digital sphere control—one that combines security intervention, legal regulation, and moral oversight.
Year 2020: Human Trafficking, Terrorism, and Batman lawsuit
Since 2020, a harsher hostile practices against TikTok users began to emerge, with several content creators arrested on charges ranging from “violating Egyptian family values” and “public indecency” to “misuse of social media,” and more serious accusations like “human trafficking.” Although many of these individuals did not produce explicitly political content or traditional forms of erotic content. Their accusations were based on vague legal provisions—particularly Article 25 of the Cybercrime Law. As noted earlier, this legal ambiguity allowed wide room for interpretation and made it possible for the text of the law to be applied to multiple and disparate cases, often with similar outcomes: imprisonment, fines, confiscation of electronic devices, extended pretrial detention, and even final sentences of many years in prison[11].
Beginning in April 2020, authorities arrested several female content creators, including Hanin Hossam, Mawada al-Adham, Sherifa Refaat (Sherry Hanem) and her daughter Noura Hesham (Zomoroda), Manar Sami, Renad Emad, Hadeer al-Hady, and Basant Mohamed. They faced charges including violating Egyptian family values, public indecency, human trafficking, and other vague accusations. The women arrested were sentenced to prison terms of up to five years and faced heavy fines. These cases reveal a clear gender based violence pattern. Many targeted content creators were young women who had gained fame or financial rewards from these platforms, outside the structures of family or traditional employment. This directly touches on sensitive issues related to social control, women’s roles in public life, and the limits of their socially accepted public appearances[12].
The cases of Mawada El-Adham and Haneen Hossam became emblematic. Mawada, active on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, posted dance videos and interacted directly with followers. She was arrested on May 14, 2020, and charged with violating family values and creating/using social media accounts for criminal purposes. After a series of investigations and trials, the Cairo Criminal Court sentenced her on June 21, 2021, to six years in prison and a fine of 200,000 EGP for human trafficking. The Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE), in cooperation with lawyer Ahmed Ragheb’s office, appealed the ruling, but on February 11, 2023, the Court of Cassation rejected the appeal and upheld the sentence, despite a recommendation by the Cassation Prosecution to accept the appeal due to insufficient evidence for the charges[13]. As for Haneen Hossam, she was, at the time of her arrest, a second-year student at the Faculty of Archaeology at Cairo University. She was active on TikTok and Likee, where she had approximately 986,000 followers on TikTok, and regularly posted singing and dancing videos. On April 21, 2020, she was arrested from her home in the Al-Sahel neighborhood in Cairo following complaints submitted to the Monitoring Unit at the Public Prosecutor’s office. She was charged with violating family values and principles and creating and using social media accounts for that purpose. On April 18, 2022, the Cairo Criminal Court (15th Circuit, South Cairo) sentenced her to three years in prison and fined her 200,000 Egyptian pounds against charges of human trafficking[14].
The security prosecutions did not stop at content accused of violating Egyptian family values, but extended to content addressing sensitive economic or political issues. In 2022, several TikTok users were arrested after posting videos criticizing price hikes of goods and services and the deterioration of government-provided services. They were charged with spreading false news and joining a terrorist organization—even though high inflation rates were officially documented. These crackdowns continued to 2023, when Mohamed Hossam El-Din and Basma Hegazy were arrested for participating in a satirical video featuring a fake visit to a prison. They were charged with joining a banned group and spreading false news, leading to their detention pending investigations in Case No. 184 of 2023. Similarly, content creator Mohamed El-Fatla was arrested on February 14, 2023, after posting a video about a butcher’s shop selling meat in installments, mocking the soaring meat prices and their variation across shops[15].
These cases reflected the authorities’ concerns about satirical or comedic content that, even indirectly, addresses political, economic, or social issues. This concern stems from its ability to spread rapidly and attracts wide sympathy, and has become a common pattern on TikTok. Security agencies viewed it as a new challenge—even though it was neither ideological nor organized, it was influential, economically sustainable through views and monetization, and capable of drawing attention to sensitive issues—such as economic conditions or detention practices—without explicitly adopting a political agenda[16]. Beyond these examples of moral or political regulation, some cases were striking in their arbitrariness, showing the extent of the security grip and its expansion to encompass any public activity—even those entirely unrelated to dance, politics, or economics. In July 2022, police arrested four young men—Anas Mahmoud Zahran, Karim Mohamed Refaat, Mazen Reda, and Islam Negdy, aged between 18 and 22—after they promoted the “Batman Helwan” event. This was a virtual competition, originating on TikTok and spreading across social media, to determine who was the “real Batman.” Participants were invited to wear Batman costumes and gather outside Helwan Metro Station on August 13, 2022, to claim the title. The prosecution charged them with joining a terrorist group, spreading false news, and inciting a terrorist act, and they were held in pretrial detention for over a year pending Case No. 440/2022 (Supreme State Security)[17].
2025: Money Laundering, Organ Trafficking, and Vague Charges
Security campaigns against TikTok content creators continued throughout 2025. Following complaints filed by lawyers or citizens, a large number of creators were arrested. The same patterns of accusations were repeated: public indecency, threatening Egyptian family values, misuse of social media, along with charges of drug or weapons possession, or allegations of money laundering. In several cases, authorities announced asset freezes, travel bans, and the confiscation of electronic devices before final verdicts were issued. extending beyond the individuals concerned, sending a broader warning to social media users[18].
The security campaign began in July, when a TikTok user posted videos claiming to be related to former president Hosni Mubarak and leveled serious accusations against an Egyptian actress and several female content creators, alleging their involvement in human organ trafficking. The user was arrested after the actress filed an official report accusing her of defamation and spreading grave allegations without evidence, which the complaint described as causing severe reputational, material, and moral harm.
Within hours, 32 lawyers filed complaints in police stations in Agouza, Dokki, Warraq, and Imbaba against several female TikTok content creators, announcing the launch of a campaign under the slogan “Let’s clean the community up”. The user who made the allegations, along with three other female creators—including a minor—were arrested. The campaign gradually expanded to include both male and female creators, such as tattoo artists and program hosts, who were charged with violating family values. Official statements noted that all of them admitted to producing videos to increase views and generate profits[19].
What’s remarkable is that the official statements were devoid of any mention of human organ trafficking charges. The charges against those arrested were limited to the usual templates, such as public indecency, threatening Egyptian family values, and misusing social media—charges widely used to prosecute digital content creators in Egypt[20].
The campaign included well-known figures such as Maryam Ayman, known as “Sorzy al-Urduniya”, who had previously been arrested and prosecuted over the same videos in 2024. On December 24, 2025, she was sentenced again to six months in prison for posting “indecent” videos[21]. Mahrousa Gamal, known as “Umm Sajda”, was also arrested and sentenced on December 9, 2025, to two years in prison and fined 200,000 EGP for violating family values[22]. Mohamed Abdel Aaty, host of the satirical talk show “With All Due Respect”, was sentenced by the Economic Misdemeanors Court to two years in prison and fined 100,000 EGP for posting indecent videos[23]. On January 17, 2026, the Cairo Economic Appeals Court reduced his sentence to three months instead of two years[24].
In this regard, the discrepancy between the seriousness of the allegations raised in some lawsuits against digital content creators and the nature of the official charges that investigations ultimately result in raises serious questions about the authorities’ approach to these cases. Rather than providing a clear official narrative that determines whether the original claims are subject to serious investigation or proven unfounded, cases are often steered toward stereotypical charges focusing on the moral aspect of the content based on vague legal provisions that allow accusations to be tailored according to prevailing considerations.
This approach reflects a recurring pattern in the state’s dealings with TikTok and content creators: rapid security responses that prioritize “public morality,” sometimes combined with economic charges—most notably “money laundering.” Although this charge has not been brought in a number of cases, its use reflects the authorities’ concern over unregulated financial flows enabled by digital platform economies, and the unconventional paths of social mobility they create outside state-controlled institutions.
In the absence of clear rules or objective standards governing when and why security intervention occurs, prosecutions become arbitrary practices lacking any predictable legal framework. This fosters a climate of uncertainty, leaving content creators—especially those from marginalized social groups or those producing controversial content—vulnerable to repression and persecution at any moment, regardless of the actual offense of their content[25].
Third: Undermining Rights under the Pretext of Protecting Society
What is happening cannot be reduced to moral regulation or the mere organization of social media use, as official statements suggest. The accompanying security and legislative practices reveal a systematic pattern of human rights violations that go beyond the content under prosecution, striking at fundamental pillars of the human rights framework. They redefine the relationship between the state and citizens in the digital sphere in terms of surveillance and punishment, rather than protection and empowerment.
The Egyptian authorities’ approach to content creators in general, and TikTokers in particular, has led to violations of numerous civil, social, and cultural rights, including:
Undermining Freedom of Expression and Turning It into a Privilege
Freedom of expression is the most usurped right in this campaign—not only because of the intensity of the prosecutions, but also due to the nature of the approach itself. Since 2020, with the escalation of targeting TikTok users, it has become clear that the state treats digital expression—even when non-political or non-protest in nature—as a domain of security regulation and a potential threat to social and moral stability. This orientation fundamentally contradicts Egypt’s international obligations, foremost among them the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Egypt is a party. Article 19 of the Covenant stipulates that freedom of expression includes “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.”[26]
According to the interpretation provided by the UN Human Rights Committee in its General Comment No. 34, any restriction on freedom of expression must meet three inseparable conditions:
- It must be prescribed by a clear and precise law, foreseeable in its application.
- It must serve a legitimate aim exclusively (such as protecting the rights of others or national security in its narrow sense).
- It must be necessary and proportionate, meaning the least harmful intervention required to achieve that aim.
Egyptian practice in cases against content creators systematically violates these conditions. At the level of legal legitimacy, most cases rely on vague provisions—chief among them Article 25 of the Cybercrime Law No. 175 of 2018, which criminalizes “violations of family values and principles of Egyptian society” without offering any legislative definition or objective criteria for measurement. By international standards, a provision cannot be considered a law in the human rights sense if it lacks clarity and precision and allows unlimited interpretation by individuals or authorities. Foreseeability of criminalization is a core requirement to protect freedom of expression from arbitrariness[27].
At the level of necessity and proportionality, investigations and court rulings in these cases show no genuine assessment of the actual harm that the contested content might cause, nor whether such harm even warrants criminal intervention, let alone custodial sentences. Instead of subjecting content to the strict necessity test required by international standards, authorities rely on a generalized moral discourse that presumes the existence of a threat without proving it, and justifies the harshest interventions as natural responses.
As a result, freedom of expression has transformed from an inherent right protected by constitutional and international commitments into a conditional privilege, dependent on compliance with an undefined set of values that the state and its institutions continuously reproduce and reinterpret, enforcing them through criminal law. This transformation not only undermines the essence of Article 19 of the ICCPR, but also empties the Egyptian constitutional text of its practical meaning, reducing legal guarantees to formal slogans that collapse under the logic of moral regulation and selective enforcement[28].
Violation of Privacy and Criminalization of Personal Life
The expansion of the prosecution of personal content in lawsuits against TikTok content creators since August 2025 represents a direct and fundamental violation of the right to privacy, a fundamental right that cannot be arbitrarily restricted. Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) prohibits any “arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, family, home, or correspondence.” This prohibition is not limited to unlawful acts alone but also covers interventions carried out under existing laws that lack necessity and proportionality[29]. The UN Human Rights Committee, in its interpretation of this article, emphasized that the mere existence of a legal provision does not justify interference with privacy unless it is specific, necessary to achieve a legitimate aim, and proportionate to the seriousness of the act in question[30]. These rights are also enshrined in Article 57 of the Egyptian Constitution, which affirms the inviolability of private life, correspondence, and communications, and restricts any infringement upon them to strict procedural safeguards[31].
Yet the reality of the cases discussed in this paper reveals a wide gap between these standards and actual practice. Investigations in several cases were built on comprehensive examinations of defendants’ digital accounts, past content, and communication patterns, without clear distinction between what was intended for public audiences and what fell within the scope of private life or limited circulation. In some instances, private content was used—such as videos not widely published or directed at a narrow circle of followers, including tattoo artists’ clips aimed at enthusiasts in that field.
Similarly, access to the personal accounts of content creators—including figures such as Sorzy al-Urduniya, Umm Sajda, and Madham—formed the basis for criminal charges. This effectively expanded the concept of the “digital public sphere” to encompass everything produced or circulated online, regardless of its context or audience, and even to include material that had not been circulated at all.
This approach contradicts the internationally established understanding of the right to privacy, which does not lapse merely because digital media are used, nor disappear simply because an individual chooses a platform that allows interaction or participation. International standards clearly distinguish between public content—which may be regulated under strict conditions—and the personal sphere, which enjoys heightened protection and may only be interfered with in the narrowest circumstances, for exceptional reasons related to serious crimes precisely defined.
Yet the campaigns targeting content creators reveal a different logic: they operate on the assumption that digital presence itself justifies surveillance, scrutiny, and criminalization, without the need to prove actual harm or a genuine threat to the rights of others[32]. This expansion reflects a conception of the state as a moral guardian whose intervention extends into the personal sphere, redefining privacy as a conditional space dependent on the extent to which individual behavior aligns with undefined general moral standards. Instead of serving as a tool to protect individuals from state arbitrariness, the right to privacy is practically repurposed in a way that inverts its function, turning private life into an open field for criminalization and accountability whenever authorities deem expression or lifestyle inconsistent with prevailing norms.
The right to a fair trial
Alongside violations of freedom of expression and privacy, these prosecutions also undermine guarantees of fair trial. one of the most serious features of the crackdown on digital content creators. This is evident in the expanded use of pretrial detention as a deterrent tool rather than an exceptional measure, in violation of international standards and Article 54 of the Egyptian Constitution, which restricts it to cases of extreme necessity.
This practice is coupled with the erosion of the presumption of innocence, as defendants are publicly portrayed as moral threats before final verdicts are issued, in violation of Article 96 of the Constitution. Moreover, reliance on repetitive and vague charges—such as violating family values or public indecency—without demonstrating specific or provable harm undermines both legality and legal certainty, weakens defense guarantees, and raises questions about the independence of judicial assessment. In effect, judicial procedures are transformed from mechanisms for protecting rights into instruments of control and deterrence[33].
Conclusion and Recommendations
This paper analyzes the Egyptian state’s behaviour against content creators and influencers on social media platforms, particularly TikTok. The behaviour often goes beyond the framework of legitimate regulation into broader spaces of control and deterrence, relying on a mix of vague legislation, security practices, and societal pressures. Which not only affects freedom of expression in the digital sphere but also undermines the right to work and due legal guarantees. It produces a climate of fear and uncertainty that drives many creators toward self-censorship, withdrawal from the public sphere, or seeking alternatives abroad.
In this regard, this paper highlights the need to reconsider the arbitrary and indiscriminate legislation and practices employed by authorities against content creators. Furthermore,a punitive, security-focused, and morally repressive approach to manage the digital sphere not only threatens the future of a promising economic industry but also negatively impacts the broader landscape of freedom of expression, undermining opportunities to build a pluralistic digital space where citizens can express themselves and participate without fear of prosecution or stigmatization.
In light of this, the paper recommends the following:
- The legislature should review and amend vague legal provisions used to prosecute content creators—particularly those related to public indecency and family values in the Cybercrime Law. These provisions must be redrafted with clarity and precision to ensure criminalization is limited to acts that cause demonstrable harm. They should be aligned with the Egyptian Constitution, especially Articles 65 and 96, and Egypt’s international obligations under the ICCPR, preventing their use as tools of arbitrary prosecution against digital expression.
- Judicial authorities, executive bodies, and the Public Prosecution should immediately and unconditionally release all content creators held in pretrial detention under vague and repetitive charges of public indecency or threatening family values, particularly where no actual harm or direct incitement exists. Sudden security campaigns and mass targeting should cease, replaced by legally defined and transparent procedures for addressing digital content, while safeguarding defendants’ right to defense and the presumption of innocence.
- State institutions should open genuine channels of dialogue with content creators instead of relying on superficial containment policies or selective meetings. A participatory institutional dialogue involving creators should be launched to develop policies that protect rights and support the digital economy without undermining freedoms.
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