Op-Ed: Whose Values Are Protected in Egypt’s TikTok Arrests?
At the start of August, several Egyptian TikTok influencers were arrested for allegedly violating “public morals,” sparking debates online and in pop culture.
This combination of pictures taken on July 28, 2020, shows a woman watching videos of Egyptian influencers Haneen Hossam and Mowada al-Adham, who were sentenced to two years in prison on charges of violating public morals, on TikTok in Cairo.
In 2024, one of Ramadan's most-watched shows, Ala Nesbet Moshahda, told the story of Shaimaa, a young woman from a poor family who gains a large following on TikTok and starts earning money through the app. Before she knows it, she's engulfed in a national debate on morality, accused of human trafficking, and stands in court to prove her innocence — she just wanted to make videos and earn a living in Egypt's dire economy.
The series was inspired by actual events. In 2020, TikTok became extremely popular in Egypt, attracting an estimated 33 million users over the age of 18 since then. Haneen Hossam and Mawada Eladham became the first TikTokers to be arrested for allegedly violating so-called family values.
Article 25 of Egypt's anti-cybercrime law states that content "violating the family principles and values upheld by Egyptian society may be punished by a minimum of six months' imprisonment and/or a fine."
Since then, over a dozen TikTokers have been targeted for their online content under the guise of violating intentionally vague "moral" or "public values," spreading false information, or even belonging to terrorist organisations.
In recent years, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights has received, reviewed, or monitored 109 different cases targeting content creators, including over 151 individuals accused of attacking "Egyptian family values."
In an intensified security crackdown at the start of August, at least seven TikTok influencers were arrested, including a girl under the age of 18. Most of them are women and from lower or middle-income classes, and most of them posted neither sexual nor political content.
Influencers Om Makka and Om Sagda are currently being detained on the grounds of publishing videos containing "indecent language" and transgressing "public decency," as well as complaints regarding their "sources of wealth."
Suzy al-Ordoniya has been detained for the second time this year; she was held in detention for 15 days in March, facing charges of joining a terrorist organization and publishing false news.
This latest arrest campaign comes after the slogan "Let's Clean It Up," which in 2020 accompanied calls to prosecute female content creators, has re-emerged to support the latest wave of mass arrests.
According to MP Ahmed al-Badawy, Chair of the Telecommunications Committee in the House of Representatives, the government regulatory agency also met with TikTok's regional representative to discuss changes to content moderation and standards.
So what are these moral and public values that are being violated, and who gets to dictate them? Egypt is an incredibly diverse country, and people from different social classes, backgrounds, and age groups hold diverse, sometimes conflicting, values.
While the government claims that the most recent arrests were made in response to citizens' legal complaints over the TikTokers' content and sources of income, many young, progressive people are expressing their outrage online.
The past few days saw many people sharing one social media user's Instagram post, saying: "The recent arrests of TikTokers under violating Egyptian family values are a classist, misogynistic assault targeting working-class women for existing online. F*ck your family values, the same ones that make women feel unsafe every single day."
August's wave of arrests also targeted men. Still, there's a common consensus that women are specifically targeted and punished for daring to take up digital space and project their voices, even if just through a viral TikTok trend, in a way that brings them financial gain.
Egyptian news outlet Mada Masr quotes lawyer Hany Sameh, who has previously defended women accused in similar cases, stating that the legal definition of "moral values" is too vague to provide a legal basis for arrest.
"Whoever talks about values must define them," Sameh said. "Are they the values of the North Coast [a very liberal holiday destination for the nation's elites] or the Fifth Settlement [one of Cairo's satellite cities with many gated compounds]? Salafi values? Or whose values exactly?"
A more interesting debate than the one about whether or not self-expression should be criminalized is: why do so many people follow influencers who create content that some describe as devoid of culture and sense?
To answer these questions, the government and privileged classes would have to engage with the citizens of contemporary Egyptian society in a sincere and meaningful way. They might find out that TikTokers who use unfiltered, vulgar language or make unhinged jokes are quite representative of a society that lives under immense hardship in a country where nothing seems to make sense. They might learn that the masses relate to a type of humor that the powerful elites don't understand, knowing that this humor is often used to ridicule and challenge social norms and authority.
But that is, of course, not the government's prerogative — it wants to control, intimidate, and sow mistrust amongst different groups. Mainly, arresting working-class women with little to no chance to defend themselves is an easy way to do that.
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