How did we know that?

We posted the handle as it was originally (@EIshwafmtyecIqx) on the Twitonomy tool. In Twitonomy’s section for the most mentioned accounts, there was the handle shown in the image. Upon further scrutiny, we found that the account was suspended for violating Twitter policies.

* Via Twitonomy

Using the Twitter search operator (To:), we noticed that the account continued to receive comments until 4 August, 2020. This means that the new account was established the following day.

Hend El Shawaf has a degree in Arabic language. She manages pages and groups through her Facebook account. This includes the page, 'Our Army, the Light of Our Eyes,' which has 9,000 followers. We confirmed Hend's ownership of the page through an email she provided in the page's data, which refers to the same handle of another account she used (@hanzada474,. That account was also suspended by Twitter along with the account @HendElshwaf_2.

She also manages a private group under the name “We Are All The Egyptian Army.”

Hend also seems to prefer certain pages, such as 'My Identity is Egypt,' which often publishes content that is hostile to refugee presence in Egypt. More on this will be discussed later in the report. 

As for the hashtag under investigation, we observed a relatively low pace of tweets before a sudden surge in September. This surge coincided with the spread of rumors about the cancellation of visa fees for Syrians entering Egypt, fees which had been in place since 2013. These rumors were proven to be false. What actually occurred was a decrease in visa price according to Syrian sources, from $3000 to $1200 compared to previous years. The hashtag made a strong comeback up the list of most trending topics in Egypt in June 2022. It was accompanied by unconfirmed reports regarding the Egyptian government's purported willingness to accept more refugees and discussions about offering the Egyptian nationality for a price. These developments unfolded against the backdrop of riots in Aswan during the same month, involving Sudanese citizens.

Tweeting activity on the hashtag persisted until November 2022, albeit at a slightly slower pace. According to estimates from UNHCR, Egypt currently hosts over 270,000 registered asylum seekers and refugees from 65 countries. The largest numbers come from Syria, followed by Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Yemen, and Somalia. However, it is important to note that these figures represent only officially registered individuals. In earlier statements, Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry mentioned that Egypt is host to approximately 6 million refugees and migrants.

An illustrative timeline of the appearance of the hashtag #Enough_Refugees_In_Egypt_We’ve_Had_Enough including peak periods and the extent of interaction. Generated using Invid and Weverify.

2968 tweets were posted under this hashtag. There were also 3646 retweets, potentially indicating coordinated activity, as retweets outnumbered the original tweets. The number of likes amounted to 11827. According to the Mever, responses incorporating the hashtag accounted for 65 percent of total interactions. Content on the hashtag varied significantly, utilizing various mediums to amplify reach and influence. The most widely circulated tweets exhibited similar characteristics, with a consistent presence of the hashtag and a mix of textual posts, visual snapshots, news articles about refugees, and memes.

Examples of content circulated through the hashtag #Enough_Refugees_In_Egypt_We’ve_Had_Enough

Content on the hashtag reflects a discourse of hatred against refugees, using phrases that aim to vilify or stir up hostility towards them. Among the expressions used are: "runaway refugee," "scammers," "criminals," "traitors," "agents," "no to resettlement," "no to naturalization," "the Hyksos," "expulsion/deportation of refugees is a popular demand," "anti-refugee campaign in Egypt," "no to the UNHCR." These phrases were used in various contexts, most notably blaming refugees for the economic downturn and increasing the burdens on the state, "crowding out" Egyptians in accessing "limited services," and planning to bring about demographic change.

Word Cloud image of the most prominent words and phrases used through the hashtag #Enough_Refugees_In_Egypt_We’ve_Had_Enough- INVID.

Despite subdued tweeting activity on the hashtag during these days compared to its peak period from June to early July, the timing of the tweets was notable, revealing a somewhat coordinated pattern of activity. For instance, most of the activity on the hashtag occurred during the weekend, especially on Saturdays and Sundays. Regarding the timing of the tweets, the majority were posted between 4:00 PM and 10:00 PM, known in digital marketing as the "evening peak" hours, indicating when social media users are most likely to check their accounts and see what others are discussing. Perhaps this was done to attract attention. There was also notable activity during midnight hours.

A heat map for the most active times of hashtag usage - INVID

Expanding Network.. Tweeting in Harmony

This hashtag wasn't flying solo in the Twitterverse. We identified at least 10 hashtags carrying the same discourse under different labels. It was striking to find them listed in the same tweet alongside the Enough Refugees hashtag. There were attempts to amplify the impact of these hashtags by coordinating their use. They appeared synchronously with the hashtag under analysis, during its peak periods in September 2021 and June 2022. Among these hashtags were: #Egypt, land of the Egyptians, not a refuge for refugees, #Egypt for Egyptians, against resettlement, #We are 100 million, no room for refugees, #Egypt is being handed over to the Hyksos, #We reject refugees and resettlement organizations, #Naturalizing refugees is the beginning of division, #Refugees undermine development, #The refugee's homeland is safe, but they are greedy for Egypt’s resources.

Illustrative graph showing the correlation between the hashtag Enough Refugees and other hashtags that emerged during its peak periods, as analyzed by the Mever

Another hashtag, #Egypt is robbed by refugees, gained traction during November, amassing 560 tweets and 3185 likes since its inception in July 2022. While adhering to the overarching theme of denouncing refugees, participants in the campaign linked the refugee issue with both local and international events to reinforce their anti-refugee stance. Examples of these issues include blogger and activist Alaa Abdel Fattah's hunger strike, the prison conditions of Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, head of the Strong Egypt Party, and the explosion on Independence Street in Istanbul.

Accounts

The most prominent active accounts on the hashtag were created in the years 2011, 2014, 2016, 2019, 2021, 2022. A closer look revealed that Twitter had closed old accounts belonging to the owners of these accounts. Some of these owners indicate that their current account - which is active on the hashtag - is their third or fourth (Hend E Shawaf is an example). The significant number of interactions in the form of replies suggests that these accounts mostly belong to real individuals. Additionally, there is a very small percentage of reliance on the "copy paste" method, common in coordinated online campaigns.

The accounts use personal photos and typically feature images of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, the Egyptian flag, or Pharaonic symbols as their profile pictures. Interactions indicate that the top five accounts with retweeted content have slightly over a thousand followers each. These five accounts follow each other, another indication of a connection between them.

A Gephi visual illustrates the most impactful accounts engaging with the hashtag #Enough Refugees

This serves as an example of how prominent accounts interact with one another, shedding light on another crucial aspect: the deliberate efforts of these accounts to engage in trolling. As depicted in the accompanying images, the accounts infiltrate refugee groups and selectively amplify certain comments or posts, aiming to stoke animosity or tarnish the image of refugees.

These accounts also actively follow pages on Facebook that are heavily critical of refugees (more on this later). Of these highly active accounts on the hashtag is a doctor, who owns the account @physioprime6, and follows the page "Refugee Republic".

There were also some noticeable typos in spelling out the hashtag #Enough Refugees We’ve Had Enough, which seemed more as an attempt to evade Twitter algorithms and tracking techniques aimed to detect these kinds of online campaigns. English characters were also used in some tweets, perhaps with the same goal. 

There was also a margin of inaccurate news. For example, in this tweet, the author justified their request for refugees to return to their country by claiming that the war had ended and that Syria had surpassed Egypt by 8 million tourists in 2022. Besides the fact that statistics for the current year have not yet been released by the World Tourism Organization, upon verification, it became clear that the latest statistics showed the number of tourists in Syria in 2019 to have been two million, while Egypt received more than 7 million tourists during 2021.

Spark on Facebook, Execution on Twitter

When the hashtag #Enough Refugees in Egypt We're Fed Up trended on Egyptian Twitter, there was a parallel mobilization effort on Facebook pages urging followers to transition to Twitter and participate  using the hashtag "to form a popular public opinion which urges the state to make a decision that satisfies the people regarding the return of those refugees to where they came from," according to one of the calls.

At first glance, it may seem like a single group is behind the amplification of the hashtag, but upon closer examination, we found that various groups and pages on Facebook that were associated with this activity. These groups and pages share a common anti-refugee content and align on nationalist rhetoric. On September 18, 2021, the page “Our Army the Light of Our Eyes”, which is managed by Hend El Shawaf, called for participation in tweeting using the hashtag. This is not the first time; the page had previously called for participation in other hashtags that preceded the appearance of the current hashtag, such as #We are 100 Million, We Don't Need Refugees and #Egypt is for the Egyptians only.

Refugee Republic

During the initial peak period of the hashtag, the Refugee Republic  page emerged on Facebook on 20 September of last year. It is managed by five individuals from Egypt, with an additional 2 unspecified individuals, as indicated by Facebook’s Transparency feature.

Despite the page's Twitter account being established in May 2020, its first tweet containing the hashtag came on June 8, 2022, at the beginning of the second peak period of the hashtag.

 

 

The page which is followed by more than 22,000 people on Facebook, defines itself as "not affiliated with any political parties, with its primary and ultimate allegiance to the Egyptian state and national interests, opposing, from within Egyptian territories, the issue of 'refugees and illegal migrants,' and highlighting the seriousness of this issue." It is associated with a closed group called the "People's Front Against Refugees," established on 6 October , 2021, and managed by six individuals, one of whom claims to work in the Central Security Forces.

    

The closed group acts as a hub for coordinating campaign activities before they are publicly launched through affiliated pages, like Refugee Republic. In the following example, a screenshot from a post by one of the group members illustrates how the Refugee Republic page appropriated an image and shared it. The post discussed the arrest of a Syrian individual, whom the page accused of using his content to insult Egyptians on social media. Prior to his arrest, the page initiated a targeted campaign against this individual, directing  attention to his posts by employing nationalist and emotional language.

Awareness Egypt

It was interesting that the Refugee Republic page shared designs and posts bearing the signature of another page named Awareness Egypt. This page is one of the active pages vehemently opposing refugees on Facebook and Twitter, although it enjoys greater visibility on Facebook.

Awareness Egypt is a member of a coalition consisting of 10 pages and active groups on Facebook. Its posts focus on attacking the presence of refugees in Egypt and adopting a nationalist rhetoric. Its administrators state: "In Awareness Egypt we adopt the principles of nationalist thought, its goals, and its history, and we promote awareness of it in Egyptian society in line with the state's vision and our aspirations for the #New_Republic."

The page was among the most active platforms opposing calls for the release of Alaa Abdel Fattah, who began a full hunger and water strike at the start of the climate summit in Sharm El Sheikh, before partially ending it by drinking only water. The page also attacked his sister, Sanaa Seif.

The exact date of the page's appearance on Facebook is unknown, but its Twitter account was launched in May of last year. Its initial tweets opposed the "mandatory specialization" of doctors, then it soon began tweeting against refugees using various hashtags. Similar to the Refugee Republic page, there is an interesting attention to the way that content is presented in Awareness Egypt,  especially in terms of the use of Pharaonic symbols in designs. The Facebook page is followed by more than 31,000 people.

While the content of the page is not fundamentally different from the previous two pages, it is more open to other topics, such as the "disappearance of the artist Amal Maher," the crisis of Ghada Wali's paintings, and Egyptian cuisine, as there is a strong emphasis on linking these topics to the nationalist discourse of the page.

In summary

• Analysis of the hashtag underscores a notable fervor against the presence of refugees in Egypt, with instances of accounts being shut down only to resurface later for the same cause.
• Participants in these campaigns are predominantly authentic accounts.
• Online activity of nationalist groups has evolved into more structured efforts, placing a stronger emphasis on crafting a nationalist narrative that garners attention.
• There is ongoing tweeting using the hashtag, but there are specific peak periods, as seen in September 2021 and June 2022.
• Attention to presentation and aesthetics is evident, with visually appealing designs and page layouts.
• There's a deliberate effort to engage diverse demographics, with hashtag activity spanning across Facebook and Twitter. Pages such as Awareness Egypt and Refugee Republic have also extended their reach to Instagram.
• Despite Twitter's attempts to curb coordinated online campaigns, the operators continue to find ways to manipulate and evade detection, often violating the platform's policies. In addition, Arabic content still lacks significant attention and scrutiny.

 

Utilized tools:

InVID Verification Plugin

Twitter Search

TweetDeck

Mever Graph Analysis

Twitonomy