Social Media Politics : MB e-Committees

Before and during January 25 revolution Egyptian social media users especially on twitter and Facebook knew very well that the NDP had what we called “e-committee” and now in the new era of the Muslim brotherhood the e-committee is back even in much worse way.

Following the NDP path : How did it start !?

After January 25 revolution information was confirmed that some Future Foundation’s “of Gamal Mubarak” members were recruited in to some sort of committees that not only monitor the social media but rather to spread the NDP’s though and defend Mubarak’s regime too there.
The NDP officials from the generation of Ahmed Ezz understood the importance of social media from 2008 Strike and decided to fight that political movement against Gamal Mubarak using its same weapon : The internet.
These members were allegedly paid LE 1200. They were easily to be spotted especially that they did not have any followers or few follows and did not change the famous twitter egg avatar. Those NDP egg tweeps on twitter as well their brothers on Facebook used to spread rumors , attack opposition figures and insulting other social media users against Mubarak. I had my share of those guys. After Jan25 revolution they moved to support Shafik, Omar Soliman and SCAF but they were pathetic
And as the Muslim brotherhood is following the NDP’s steps in everything .. in much worse way , it was natural to find a MB e-committees spreading like fire.

More sophisticated and More Stupider

The Muslim brotherhood and its e-committees are more organized and spread as well Sophisticated when it comes to Online presence than the NDP. We are speaking about a devoted members base and network not only in Egypt but around the globe. It is enough to see how RSSD and its young sisters BRQ spread like fire in most of the Arab countries. I am not speaking about the Ikhwan Web and sister Muslim brotherhood websites as I am focusing here on the social media whether Facebook or Twitter or YouTube.
Unlike NDP and Future Foundation , we got real  devoted members who believe in their cause blindly. Believing in the cause blindly leads to stupidity and failure this is what happened in our case with MB e-committees.
It has become so easy to catch the MB e-committees especially with their stupidity that expose them badly. Now we know the techniques of those committees online. Here I gathered their techniques.

1 – Spamming the timelines and comments areas with the comments over and over .. from different Facebook users at the same time !!

And from different accounts too !! It has been discovered now in the Facebook , especially in the Facebook pages like Kolena Khaled Said and other Pages that the MB e-committees go and spam the comments with the same comment , Copy/Paste at the same time too !!!
This always happens when Morsi addresses the public or issues some decisions. My own interpretation that the commandership of MB e-committees in Moktam area thinks that in this way Morsi will appear to have popularity and support !!

Here are some examples

Early last week this comment in Facebook was published after the news of releasing Safwat El Sherif from custody. Same comment saying :
Releasing Safwat El Sherif is a proof of this regime’s smartness , it gives the former regime’s icon some safety feeling in order to destroy them forever !!
See the time difference between of the Copycat comments !!
Another example when the MB committees spread rumors about East Cairo district Mostafa Mashour , who released the detainees of the MB accusing of being the legal adviser of Ahmed Shafik. “Which is untrue”

Third example , two identical comments from Facebook about why the MB’s IMF loan is better the Ganzoury’s IMF loan.
Fourth example :  I am not a MB but we should give Morsi a chance , ah and I copy paste the comments !!
Fifth example : I am an engineer working in petroleum sector and I agree that we lift the subsidiary from the 95/92/90 oil  !! Ironically this time we got a Christian Copycat FB commentator !!

The last example is from the presidential Palace clashes where 5 supposedly different users copy the same comment that their colleague in work , an engineer was killed.

If you do not read Arabic , you can how the same text is repeated over and over. 

2 – Identity twitter theft

Now this is the most controversial technique because we are speaking about online identity theft , oh yes. The MB committees on twitter made these Fake celebrity twitter accounts that seemed to be Pro-Revolutionary , some time moderate but most of the time supportive to MB.There was a major problem that media used to take these tweets as celebs’ quotes when they did not say anything.
The most famous accounts from that kind  We got : Khaled Saleh , Gihan Fadel , Donia Samir Ghanem, Emy Samir Ghanem , Mervat Amin, Ahmed El Sakka , Ahmed Ezz, Amr Saad and Asser Yassin. “These are the ones I know” 
Most of these accounts use the names of these popular actors in Arabic where as the twitter handler say “@xxxFans”
Khaled Saleh and Gihan Fadel have been victims of fake twitter account especially Gihan. The fake account used her name to post a tweet attacking ElBaradei and that tweet was featured in the media.

مظاهرات بقيادة عمرو موسى والسيد البدوي ومحمد ابو حامد وبرادعي هولوكوست وشفيق اعلنها ثورة على الثورة وعايزني ما اخدش بالي انها ثورة مضادة !!

— جيهان فاضل (@gihanfadelfans) November 30, 2012

Protests led by Amr Moussa , El Siyad Badawy, Mohamed Abu Hamed , ElBaradei “holocaust” and Shafik says that it is a revolution against revolution and you do not want to me not to notice it is a counter revolution

The real Gihan had to deny this statement and even recorded on video that she did not post tweet nor did she attack or mock Dr. ElBaradei.

Amazingly there is another impostor using Gihan’s name on twitter.
I believe this is the first time the revolutionary actor who was among the first to support #Jan25 to appear in front of the camera after the death of her husband.
Just like Fadl , Saleh had to post a video on YouTube denying to own an account on twitter then.

According to El Badil after this video and statements Khaled Saleh decided to have official Facebook page and twitter account. I do not know if that twitter account is his or not.
Another person who got annoyed from these fake tweets is young Emy Samir who found herself to be supportive to all president Morsi’s decisions online and press quoting her despite she did not have a twitter account.
Emy Samir told Bassem Sabry that she got no twitter account.

إيمي سمير غانم أكدت لي اليوم انه ليس لديها اي حساب على تويتر، وأنها لم تصرح اي تصريحات سياسية، والحساب الحالي ينتحل شخصيتها. ريتويت من فضلك.

— Bassem Sabry باسم (@Bassem_Sabry) December 23, 2012

Her sister Donia had to open an official twitter account to deny all what is said in that fake account.
In the end Donia had to post a tweet that her sister Emmy does not have a twitter account and that account she is posting from is her only account !!

يا جماعة إيمي سمير غانم ماعندهاش أي أكونت علي تويتر وأنا ماعنديش أكونت تاني غير ده #من_فضلكوا_ريتويت#شكرا

— Donia Samir Ghanem (@DoniaSGhanem) December 27, 2012

Eyad Nassar had to confront the fake account through his official personal account forcing it to be closed. Already the popular Jordanian young actor found the fake account spreading tweets about the October Uprising in Jordan supporting it and attacking the king and monarchy. “The fake account changed its name to Free Jordan”
Eyad could have been in real shit in his country if he did not pay attention to that account and acted quickly as that account was a republic system in Jordan directly

#ثورة_الأردنانا اياد نصار وهذا حسابي الحقيقي على تويتر ولايوجد لي اي تصريحات حول مايحدث في الاردن..

— Eyad Nassar (@EyadNassar2) November 14, 2012

I am Eyad Nassar , this is my real account and I do not have any statements about what is happening in Jordan

This was enough reason to see Eyad Nassar who presented Hassan El Bana’s bio on TV from 2 years among Egyptians who took the streets of Heliopolis to protest at the Presidential Palace against Morsi and Muslim brotherhood.
The latest victim of these fake account is actor Asser Yassin. Ironically Asser used to tweet secretly on twitter and “also tumblring secretly” keeping a low profile but after finding this fake twitter account using his name he had to have another official twitter with his name.

قرار اني اعمل حساب خاص علي تويتر كان بسببكثرة الادعاءات والآراء السياسية التي تداولتها بعض الصحف والمواقع الفترة الاخيرة عن لساني..

— AY (@Asser_Yassin) December 26, 2012

I decided to have my own account on twitter because of the so many political quotes and opinions spread in the press and websites allegedly on behalf of me.

After these celebs began to speak , the account admins had to change the bio and say that the following message in the bio

Fans Demo Account and informal & parody..I hope that you enjoy with us..Managed by fans.

Ironically and sadly up till this moment , websites and newspapers still quote these fake accounts as if they were real. Already again you will see the copy paste comments and tweets let alone the language used in the tweets which makes you wonder if these actors are professional writers. Of course our celebs need to know what is verification blue power in twitter to be spared from all that jazz.

3- Spamming polls

It is an old technique , whenever there is online survey in place in the world about Morsi and his policies , the MB will head in spamming technique to vote for the man and his policies.
It happened before , the best example was during the Time’s person of the year online when we found that Morsi was included. I remember on that day Morsi got thousands of votes in no time compared to Obama or PSY !! Then we found the MB committees as well supporters all over the worlds were doing their best but for their luck the Presidential palace clashes happened and it seems the Time webmaster found out there was something strange.
Even normal Facebook users in Egypt found in their inbox messages telling them to vote for the President in the Time’s poll.

4- Who will discredit hot girls !?

Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.

This is the photo used for avatar

I used to suspect her so much. A beautiful unveiled girl claiming to be ex-liberal yet pro-revolutionary who defends the Muslim brotherhood and President Morsi day and night. That was Asmaa El Sayed who had a very active account. The beautiful girl with brown hair in the twitter avatar had many followers admiring both her info and her views.
I had my doubts and I always wondered personally “ is this girl related some how to some MB !? Is she engaged to some MB member !? how can she have all that inside info ??”
I kept these questions to myself , I am not from that kind to attack other tweeps by doubt except if they do something outrageous like Abdel Rahman Ezz or Ibrahim Farag “both MB”.  Still it turned out that I was not alone and other tweeps began to suspect her especially no one knows her personally and no one met her in real life. FYI in Egyptian twitter world you got these tweeps groups that know each other personally especially those who are involved in a way or another in politics and in the revolution. In fact there are very few politicized tweeps who keep themselves anonymous. “I am already known from several tweeps in Egypt”
Then came the biggest surprise of all times on twitter , the avatar of Asmaa is not hers as it turned out to be the avatar of another girl , foreign girl boys spotted it on forums !! Then we found out that there was no Asmaa after nearly two years and suddenly the account was closed.
After the fall of Asmaa people began to suspect unveiled girls who are defending MB day and night especially pretty ones. In fact people began to suspect each other on twitter and began to receive DMs from friends asking about that tweep whom I follow and whether he or she is real !!
Thanks to Dr. Nermeen Bedair for her amazing work in documenting the tweets and updates of Muslim brotherhood.