was blocked it continued to create new copies of the website, however, these were also all blocked within hours of their launch. By 22 April Batel claimed that it had received over 700,000 votes (Shea, 2019). Despite this clear connection between the blocking of Batel and the referendum, no relation was found between the other 34,000 blocked websites and the referendum. NetBlocks theorizes that when the Batel campaign created a series of different domain names hosted on the same IP address, the intelligence service decided to block the underlying IP, resulting in 34,000 other websites becoming inaccessible in the country (Ibid). While supporters of President Sisi claim that the laws safeguard freedom of expression, opponents have pointed to the country’s penchant for jailing journalists, activists, and political figures on “Fake news” charges, arguing that the law is being used as a media censorship tactic (Funke & Flamini 2019). For example, defendants in Case 441, commonly referred to as the Media Hub of the Muslim Brotherhood, were charged based on alleged associations with the Muslim Brotherhood. However, according to TIMEP (2018) “these claims are often unjustified and issued due to the defendants’ critical remarks of the regime”. Human rights’ activist Amal Fathy, was sentenced to two years in prison on charges of “spreading false news”, a result of posting a video on Facebook which criticized the government for the country’s levels of sexual harassment (Michaelson, 2018). An Egyptian economist and author, Abdel-Khaleq Farouq, was arrested in October 2018 for his book titled Is Egypt Really a Poor County? for publishing ‘fake news’ that challenged President el-Sisi’s economic policies. While the detention of journalists is not new, the Committee to Protect Journalists has described the influx of detentions as “fresh waves of repression”, particularly under the new justification of ‘false news’ charges (Hendawi, 2018). Table 1: Organizational Form and Prevalence of Social Media Manipulation in Egypt Initial Government Politicians Private Contractors Civil Society Citizens & Report Agencies & Parties Organizations Influencers Supreme Abdel New Waves, El Council for the Fattah al- Fagr Administration Sisi, of the Media, Naaym Media and Saad Rumour Zaghloul Monitoring Unit Strategies, Tools, and Techniques Disinformation: Cyber troops in Egypt use a variety of strategies, tools and tactics to spread disinformation and manipulate public discussions about politics online. Following the removal of President Morsi in 2013, there was a surge of disinformation on Facebook and Twitter as both opponents and supporters of the ousted president spread rumours, fabricated images, and created fake accounts. For example, the Facebook page of Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood, posted old photos of children killed in Syria, blaming the Egyptian Army and claiming the photos were from Egyptian protests (Al Arabiya, 2013; BBC, 2013). The volume of disinformation has led to verification pages, such as ‘Da Begad?’ or ‘Is This Real?’ to fact-check by verifying posts, images, and videos (BBC, 2013). 123